SIR Keir Starmer‘s government increased tuition fees for the first time in eight years today, as young people “bear the brunt of a broken system.”

The annual cost of an undergraduate degree in England and Wales rose by £285 — 3.1 per cent — to £9,535 per year. This is the second fee rise in Wales within a year following a jump from £9,000 to £9,250 last September.

A spokeswoman for Momentum said: “The marketisation of our higher education system has failed.

“The government can fix this with increased state funding and the abolition of tuition fees.

“Young people should not bear the brunt of a broken system.”

The Department for Education said the rises in England — along with increases to maintenance loans — were in line with inflation when they were announced last November.

Students from England who live away from their parents outside London will now be able to borrow a maximum of £10,544 a year to help meet their day-to-day living costs.

In November, the National Union of Students welcomed the announcement of a rise in maintenance loans, citing surveys showing that student foodbank use has doubled since 2022, with one in seven having used one. 

It however warned that means-testing the loans without the introduction of grants “will contribute to an even higher burden of debt for the poorest students.”

Today, the SNP said that a record number of students are being accepted for university in Scotland while “this latest increase will burden a whole generation of students in England and Wales with even higher levels of eye-watering debt.”

MSP George Adam said: “This progress in widening access to higher education has only been made possible due to the SNP’s continued commitment to free tuition, which would be put at risk by Labour.

“A reintroduction of fees would put this progress at risk and saddle young people with obscene levels of debt.

“Students graduating in Scotland are not saddled with the crippling levels of debt experienced by students elsewhere across the UK — that’s the difference the SNP makes. 

“The SNP will always be committed to ensuring that access to university is based on the ability to learn and not the ability to pay, and that the opportunity of a university education is available to everyone.”

The Prime Minister vowed to end tuition fees when he was running for Labour leader in 2020, calling them “unfair and ineffective.”