By Oliver Hanlon
In late November, the Senedd decided that tuition fees would rise from £9,535 to £9,790 for courses beginning on or after August 1, 2026. This will see students at Welsh universities facing increasingly higher student debt, with the third increase in tuition fees since 2024, which will see tuition fees in Wales go from £9,000 in 2023 to £9,790 in September 2026. In the announcement of this increase, Vikki Howells (Labour, MS for Cynon Valley) minister for further and higher education, stated that this will bring in an additional £19m for Welsh Universities.
Howells said: “I want to re-emphasise that increases in tuition fees should not deter anyone in Wales from applying to university.” and that this “does not affect the upfront costs of university for students, nor does it increase monthly loan repayments after graduation.” A spokesperson for Universities Wales (the body representing all Welsh universities) welcomed the announcement, stating it was a “necessary step, although not the only one, to help address those pressures and ensure the long-term sustainability of the sector.”
The Welsh Government also announced a 2% increase to maintenance loans for students. In a statement, Vikki Howells called it “the most generous living cost support in the UK for full-time undergraduates.”
This comes with the backdrop of Cardiff University’s deficit and its Academic Futures proposal from January 2025, in which 400 job cuts were threatened. In November, Cardiff University announced that it would be offering non-academic staff voluntary redundancies and would not force redundancies in this area. Further cuts could follow, with many staff expressing stress over job insecurity.
In a statement given to Gair Rhydd, Deio Owen, NUS Cymru President, said:
“Unfortunately, today’s confirmation that tuition fees for students in Wales will increase to £9,790 comes as no surprise. For the third time in less than 2 years, we’ve seen an increase to the tuition fees students in Wales face. Education is a right that should be awarded to everyone; however, students are ending their courses with ever-increasing levels of debt. And coupled with the rising cost of surviving, the financial uncertainty is putting more and more prospective students off university.
“Wales already has the lowest percentage of 18-year-olds going to university of all four UK nations, with only 32% of 18-year-olds going to university, compared with 40% in Northern Ireland. The Welsh Government should be incentivising young people to go to university, rather than burdening them with more debt.
“Quite simply, the marketisation of Higher Education is a failed experiment, and tuition fees are a barrier to education, rather than a springboard to success. Young people in Wales need to see a convincing offer in the May 2026 election, to fund not just their education but their ambitions.”