May 12, 2011 1.06 pm This story is over 154 months old

Lincoln Vice Chancellor leads national campaign

Campaign: The University of Lincoln VC is helping to launch a campaign highlighting the value of going to university.

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Lincoln is helping to launch a campaign highlighting the value of going to university.

Professor Mary Stuart is the lead Vice Chancellor of the More than just a degree national campaign and will speak alongside Universities Minister David Willets at the launch at the Houses of Parliament.

The campaign is in reaction to the government voting in favour of allowing universities to charge £9,000 a year and cut backs in higher education funding.

It is organised by University Alliance, a group of universities, and aims make people realise the benefits of going to a degree not only to the economy but also to themselves.

Professor Stuart said: “With all of the headlines about fees, the question of the value of a degree is now again being challenged. As Vice Chancellors and universities, we need to be better at explaining how valuable a University experience is.”

Stuart told an audience of University of Lincoln students back in February about this campaign to tell people “about what higher education gives people in society as a whole”. This was in response to feeling uncomfortable about other universities “rubbing their hands in glee about higher fees”.

“We are starting to feel really uncomfortable with people saying we represent all vice-chancellors. They don’t.”

Both universities in Lincoln decided to charge more than the expected average of £6,000. In April the University of Lincoln announced that it would be charging £9,000 come 2012 and in March Bishop Grosseteste announced that they will be charging £7,500 a year for their degree courses.

The campaign also includes students who have made the most of their time at university. This includes a University of Lincoln student Amy Guy who won an internship with Google.

Guy would like people to realise that there is more to higher education than just getting a degree: “I think we need to make a big deal of the fact that all these opportunities are there at university and that you have to make the most of them.”

Source: University of Lincoln Related Report: Lincolnshire Echo