Post Graduate Taught Fees @ Imperial College London
Here is a letter that I have recently written to co-signatories of a letter to address, and contest, the introduction of MSc and MRes application fees at Imperial College London. In the letter, I share that the College is still very keen on getting prospective students to pay £80 to apply to the college.
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04/Feb/2021
Dear co signatories of the open letter re: removal of the MSc/MRes/MPH application fees,
At the moment the status of removing the post graduate taught (PGT) applications fees is not good.
I would like to thank you for your support, and also to let you know where things are.
While >1276 people have collectively shared that they are unhappy with the £80 PGT application fee, the Provost (Prof Ian Walmsley) wrote to me to say “the decision to implement fees for the next academic year has been made” and has dismissed arguments, which have included:
Imperial as One (the College’s advisory group made of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff) surveying their membership and finding that 94% believe the implementation of the admissions process impacts applicants from lower-income households.
329 alumni co-signed a letter to the Provost, which included a statement that “until the college reverses this decision and abandons the phase-in of graduate application fees, we will cease supporting Imperial’s fundraising activities.”
Our letter which provided many arguments against the fees, based upon prior literature, and specific issues affecting the Imperial community.
The unique nature of this fee. Imperial is unusual from within the Russel Group in applying this fee, and it is towards the most expensive of the group as well.
The College defends the policy suggesting that it does not create a barrier to access, despite quantitative and qualitative evidence from our community, and beyond, being shared with it. This has been shared internally through multiple committees, Departmental based discussion, and much more.
In the same breath, senior members of the Registry and the College Senior Leadership have admitted that there is at present no college widening participation (WP) strategy at MSc and MRes level. In implementation of this fee, the Faculties have been informed that they can divert the fee income to other purposes, not restricted to enhancements of the application system. Opportunities for students from under-represented groups is one of the suggested uses. This suggestion sets up WP students as beneficiaries of the scheme in a divide and rule manner. None of this is explained to PGT applicants on the webpages.
In a wider series of reforms, with much of this push encouraged during the racial reckoning of BlackLivesMatter, the college has created a “scholarships and bursaries” working group to explore issues. The working group has been used to move discussion on the fees, but it is unclear how they will be addressed (especially as it is a new group). I fear that the group led by Profs Maggie Dallman and Emma McCoy may be used by many across the college to shift all the issues with regards to access and widening participation to a new committee to discuss, and leave us without necessary and overdue actions.
Pushing this to the working group to also seek “more college input” is bizarre, as it seems they do not trust the spontaneous and extensive outpouring of concern from across the community. While I personally believe that while we do need to look at the holistic story of admissions pathways (and have been working with colleagues on this), the inaction on dealing with MSc and MRes fees highlights that college is unwilling to make changes even when evidence is passed to them.
These barriers are sustained in our community by policies that are poorly thought through and implemented blindly across the college. The fragility of these decisions is then amplified in that when these decisions are made, and new evidence is brought to light, the powers that be double down on the end result. The end result is that we wipe out many of our gains in increasing access and genuinely widening participation to education at an apparently “world leading” institution.
I can confirm:
· The decision originated largely within the Finance Taskforce, under the auspices of the Council’s Finance Committee (led by the CFO, Muir Sanderson).
· The idea was brought to the taskforce via a discussion of the Deans and Heads of Department, and the “rationale varied from raising revenues to covering the growing costs in some Departments”.
· The £80 fee was projected to make >£4m in new income, which is to be returned to individual Departments.
· This is a new and unallocated revenue stream, which is potentially very attractive during financial instability of global pandemic and Brexit.
· The Faculty of Engineering is looking to have an increased number of MSc and MRes admissions as of last year.
· Departments can set up individual waiver programmes, e.g. if they want to dismantle the barrier that has been created. This was done by IMSE, but it turns out that advertising this on their website has been found in breach of college policy.
· Decision making for this process is being passed from office to office across the University. Ultimate, it has been signed off by the Provost (provost@imperial.ac.uk) at the highest level. It is also agreed by the Deans, and many of the Heads of Department.
· It is not widely supported by many staff (380 signatories of our letter were current staff), including a large number of course leaders and a significant fraction of the Student Recruitment and Outreach team.
· It is not supported by the student union. The College has failed to consult with them on the introduction of the admission fees.
If we look at this from the journey of individual students, we can recognise that many will make multiple applications to many institutions. This makes £80 a direct and immediate barrier, which is compounded as the sector follows Imperial’s “world leading” position. It is perhaps interesting to reflect that the congregation (voting body) of the University of Oxford have voted to abolish their fee. Yet, Southampton University has justified their (new) admissions fee that it is “in line with other Universities who have been charging such fees for some time”.
As many may know, I am leaving the College at the end of this week as a full-time employee. There are many reasons involved in this decision, but one of them is that I do not think that Imperial actively engaged in dismantling barriers to access education and addressing the marginalisation of individuals within our communities.
I can only recommend that you write to your Head of Department, your course leader, or perhaps the Provost. I would recommend keeping the email very short, but to ask them individually to withdraw application fees at the earliest opportunity and in the meantime to revoke the policy that limits Departments from waiving these fees individually.
Ultimately, a policy or working group is not enough. If the College is really looking at widening participation, decisive action is required.
Regards,
Dr Ben Britton
Reader in Microscopy and Metallurgy
Department of Materials
Imperial College London
