A SENIOR Oxford University official yesterday warned it would have to charge Students fees of £8,000-a-year just to break even.

Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Tony Monaco painted a stark picture of the financial situation at a meeting of the university’s Congregation at the Sheldonian Theatre, as about 100 students staged a protest outside.

Prof Monaco said: “All universities are losing a substantial amount of Government funding for teaching.

“Because of cuts in Government funding, both for the teaching and capital infrastructure, we would have to charge fees of around £8,000 just to maintain the status quo.

“Anything else would mean we lose money or we have to find, with immediate effect, funds from elsewhere.”

He said the maximum fees of £9,000-a-year allowed under new rules would raise an extra £14m a year. At present, the university charges a maximum of £3,290-a-year.

On average, the university spends £16,000-a-year per student.

Money from fees and the Government meets £75m of the university’s £116m running costs.

Prof Monaco said fear of debt could put off students from lower-income backgrounds and added that much of the extra £14m could have to go to keep their fees low. A £3,000 cut in the charges for such students would cut the extra income by a third, he added.

University leaders warned that departments and colleges were running annual deficits because of the funding crisis.

Roger Boden, who chairs the estates bursars’ committee, said charging £9,000-a-year would give the university little extra money to bridge the £41m gap between income and expenditure.

Students gathered outside the Sheldonian Theatre to lobby academics and staff arriving for the meeting.

St Edmund Hall philosophy and French student Sky Herington, 21, said other universities would follow Oxford’s lead if fees were set at £9,000.

She added: “We’re trying to make clear we’re not just against fees going up, but also the cuts.”

Oxford University Student Union vice-president-elect Hannah Cusworth told the meeting she would have been put off applying to Oxford by £9,000-a-year fees.

She added: “Coming to Oxford has made things I had never even considered seem possible. If I was facing £40,000 of debt and £9,000 annual fees at 17, I don’t know if I could have justified that to myself or my mum.”

The meeting did not vote on the level of future fees.

The university’s governing council will meet to decide fee levels and waivers for poorer students on Monday, March 14.

  • Universities were warned yesterday not to act as “instruments of social segregation” as ministers prepared to spell out measures to ensure young people from poor backgrounds can get into elite institutions.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will tell university vice-chancellors at a meeting later this week that if they want permission to charge the maximum £9,000-a-year tuition fee, they will have to show they are doing as much as they can to admit students from all social backgrounds.

  • Cambridge University is proposing to charge students the maximum £9,000-a-year in tuition fees from next year, it was revealed yesterday.

The proposal is contained in a consultation report from a university working group on fees.