Labor to End Free University Tuition

The Labor Party government announced it will abolish a keystone of Britain’s welfare state: free university education. Students will now have to use their own money or take out loans to pay tuition. “We must get more money into our university system,” Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons. Increased funding through taxation was “something people would not tolerate.” An estimated 1.1 million full-time students at 90 universities receive a government grant to pay tuition and some other expenses. Nearly 600,000 part-time students pay their own expenses.