More than half of Cambridge University students would not have paid fees of £12,000 for higher education, a poll revealed today.
A staggering 61 per cent of current Cambridge students said they would not have attended the university if tuition fees had been raised to £12,000.
The poll was carried out to gauge student reaction after Lord Browne recommended that the current £3,920 cap on fees should be lifted.
A further 34 per cent of students would not have paid £7,000 annually to attend the university while 75 per cent disagreed with Lord Browne’s proposals.
Student newspaper, The Tab, polled 405 current Cambridge students to find out how the proposals would have affected their decision to attend the university.
Editor Joshi Eichner Herrmann said: ”As our poll shows, Cambridge students are clearly wary of big rises in the cost of higher education.
”But equally people here recognise that we can’t carry on as a world leading university without better funding.
”No-one wants universities like Oxford and Cambridge to go back to the days when young people with money had a clear advantage over those from poorer backgrounds.
”So everyone with an interest in this issue will be waiting to hear how the government will ensure that that doesn’t happen.”
The report from former BP boss Lord Browne suggests removing the cap on fees and allowing universities to charge fees as high as £20,000 a year.
It also stipulates that a ”levy” would be paid by establishments that charged more than £6,000, which would increase for each additional £1,000 in fees.
A university charging £10,000 a year would retain 81 per cent of the fee, while 77 per cent of £11,000 would be retained and 73 per cent of £12,000 fees.
Cambridge University currently charges a maximum of £3,290 per year for tuition fees and estimates annual living costs at up to £7,500.
