Petition · past parliament

Reduce semester 1 university fees if unable to return to physical teaching

Rejected 21 signatures

What the petition asks

It has been heard in the news that semester 1 starting September 2020 for university students will likely have to be done through online teaching. However, students will still be charged the full tuition despite not being able to use all university facilities.
Students should not have to pay the same tuition fees for a reduced use of facilities. Students should have semester 1 fees reduced if online teaching is the only option in relation to COVID-19. Students already face high tuition rates with most paying £9250. Why should a student pay the same price they would pay to use all university facilities whenever they are being taught online thus depleting the use of facilities?

Why it was rejected

It asked for something that is not the responsibility of the UK Government or Parliament.

Decisions about reducing tuition fees would be a matter for individual universities, and not the Government or House of Commons.

If your university course is affected by coronavirus in the next academic year, you could start a petition calling on the Government to reimburse you or reduce your student loan.

You can find out more about coronavirus and how you can protect yourself and others here:

www.gov.uk/coronavirus
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/

The Government has also created an online service to help you out what you can do if you’re struggling because of coronavirus: https://www.gov.uk/find-coronavirus-support

You can read NHS tips to help if you are worried about coronavirus here: https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/coronavirus-covid-19-anxiety-tips

You can read impartial analysis of the Government response to coronavirus and policy developments here: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/coronavirus/

You may also be interested to know that because of the large number of petitions that have been started in relation to coronavirus, the Petitions Committee has been questioning the Government about its response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Find out more: https://committees.parliament.uk/work/192/the-governments-response-to-coronavirus/

Timeline

5 May 2020 Petition opened for signatures
28 May 2020 Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 21
Status Rejected
Rejected 28 May 2020

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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.