University of Manchester students walked out of lectures in protest against the University’s planned rise of postgraduate fees and wider privatisation of education. The walkout was on Wednesday 14th March at 11am as part of the National Union of Students' (NUS) mass walkout. After the walkout around a hundred students congregated outside of University Place.

The University of Manchester plans on raising the minimum fee for postgraduate taught courses by 43% in September 2012 from £3,500 to £5,000 [1]. This is despite the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE) returning £1,100 in funding to the University for each postgraduate taught student in non-classroom based subjects in 2012[2], which removes any financially based need to raise fees.

Earlier this year Professor Vincent Emery, Vice-Head of the Graduate School at University College London, said that it was likely that fees for master courses would increase, so as to be more in line with the £9,000 fees for undergraduate courses, something which the University of Manchester has not ruled out.

Manchester Against Fees & Cuts (MAFAC), the anti-cuts and fees society for students at the University of Manchester, along with the University of Manchester Students’ Union (UMSU), is calling for the fees not to rise. However, if the fees do rise they argue that the University should provide more bursaries and scholarships. At the moment only around 3.5% of Postgraduate Taught students receive a bursary or scholarship compared to approximately a quarter of undergraduate students.[3]

Sarah Kerton, Treasurer of Manchester Against Fees & Cuts, stated the following: “Unlike undergraduate education, postgraduate students get no loan and have to pay for their degree upfront. Therefore, a rise in fee will mean that many students will be priced out of a postgraduate education, and as a result the professions and research careers that they lead to, as well as the ability to further their critical enquiry skills. We must stop a postgraduate degree becoming even more elitist than it already is by putting pressure on the University to remove finance as a barrier.”[4]