Following the coalition government's decision to allow higher tuition fees to be charged on undergraduate courses, the cost of conservatoire education has nearly tripled.
It will now cost upwards of £36,000 to complete an undergraduate course at any of the UK conservatoires, while a 2 year postgraduate could cost over £24,000.
Undergraduate fees will be covered by student loans, which will cover the entire tuition fee, but postgraduate fees are entirely unsupported by the government.
Due to prior investment in their education, a few of the most privileged and wealthiest applicants will be selected for scholarship support, while everyone else will be left with a real dilemma: how is it possible to obtain up to £12,000 per year on top of living costs?
Career and Professional Development loans were until recently a practical option: borrowing £10,000 with a 9.9% APR, and perhaps paying it back slowly over 5 years. However, the total amount available to borrow has not increased, and £10,000 does not come close to covering the cost of a postgraduate course now. If we take the Royal Academy's MMus fee as an example, a student could take out a career development loan for £10,000 and still be £2,000 short of covering the first year's fee - let alone the second year's fee of £12,000 and in addition to that living costs and transport costs.
The Royal College of Music state:
"You will also need a minimum of £9,000 per year for living costs in London. Most students find that they need more than this to live comfortably. "
So if we take this as a guide, a successful applicant on the Royal Academy's MMus course would need to find £42,000 to cover a 2 year course. The £10,000 supplied by the career development loan looks ever more insignificant.
This is a completely unworkable situation.
It gets worse.
Guildhall state that they expect a 15% deposit before study commences - a mere £1,205. The Royal College state that they usually expect the entire year's fee to be paid in advance - a total of £8,700. The Royal Academy expect a 25% deposit (that's £3,000) in the spring, with the year's balance settled by August
This financial filtering of the next generation of musicians will be a quiet one, but unless something is addressed, the only people able to study performance at a postgraduate level will be those from very rich families.
I call on the principals of the conservatoires and the funding bodies to address this with transparent means-tested bursaries, and with the conversion of scholarship funds into additional bursary support.
The cost of an MMus at the Royal Academy of Music increased by £2,500 in a single year. Is this rise a fair one? These institutions have a responsibility not only to provide world class tuition, but to ensure that the training they offer is as accessible to those deserving of it as possible.
Otherwise, in addition to our cabinet of millionaires, we will soon only have symphony orchestras, pit bands and string quartets of millionaires too. I can't see that being a good thing, can you?
Fees for the main UK conservatoires are now as follows:
Royal Academy of Music
Undergraduate - £9,000 pa ( £36,000 for a 4 year course )
2011-12: £3,375 pa
Postgraduate - £10 / 12,000 pa ( £20 / 24,000 for a 2 year course )
2011-12: £8,500/ £9,500 pa
International / ELQ fees:
Undergraduate - £18,600 pa (£74,400 for a 4 year course)
Postgraduate - £19,400 / £19,800 pa ( £38,800 / £39,600 for a 2 year course)
Trinity College of Music
Undergraduate - £9,000 pa ( £36,000 for a 4 year course )
2011-12: £3,375 pa
Postgraduate - £7,250 pa ( £14,500 for a 2 year course )
2011-12: £6,500 pa
International / ELQ fees:
Undergraduate - £16,500 pa (£66,000 for a 4 year course)
Postgraduate - £16,500 pa ( £33,000 for a 2 year course)
Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Undergraduate - £9,000 pa ( £36,000 for a 4 year course )
2011-12: £3,375 pa
Postgraduate - £8,030 pa ( £16,060 for a 2 year course )
2011-12: ? pa
International / ELQ fees:
Undergraduate - £18,250 pa ( £73,000 for a 4 year course)
Postgraduate - £18,250 pa ( £36,500 for a 2 year course)
Royal College of Music
Undergraduate - £9,000 pa ( £36,000 for a 4 year course )
2011-12: £3,375 pa
Postgraduate - £8,700 pa ( £17,400 for a 2 year course )
2011-12: £8,250 pa
International / ELQ fees:
Undergraduate - £19,200 pa ( £76,800 for a 4 year course)
Postgraduate - £19,700 pa ( £39,400 for a 2 year course)
Full fee details for the RNCM are not available for 2012-13, though they have issued a statement saying that undergraduate fees will be at the £9,000 pa maximum.
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