The tuition fee grants offered to all Welsh nationals studying at Welsh Universities are to be phased out by September 2010, it was recently announced.

Welsh students currently receive a grant of £1,940, regardless of their background, to offset the cost of university fees. Scrapping this will bring Wales into line with the rest of Britain and close the ‘fee gap’ between them. Those currently studying at a Welsh university will continue to be entitled to the tuition fee grant until the end of their studies, but the majority of students going into Higher Education will be incurring more debt than they would previously have expected.

The Education Minister, Jane Hutt, has said that instead of the tuition fee grant for all Welsh nationals more help will be given to students coming into Higher Education from lower income backgrounds. There are plans for £44 million to be put into increasing the Assembly Learning Grant, a means-tested grant of between £2,906 and £5,000 given to students to help towards living costs, similar to the grant currently offered to students in England.

Plans were also announced to write off student loan debts of up to £1,500 from 2010, and for a new scheme encouraging university graduates to look for employment in Wales.

Jane Hutt claims that Higher Education institutions will benefit immediately from these new measures, and has estimated that by 2015 they will receive an extra £31 million a year, including funding for bursaries and scholarships. More students will be able to have access to Higher Education, creating a "level playing field for all Welsh students, wherever they study".

The announcement has not been met with universal approval in government however, with the Liberal Democrats refusing to support the new schemes. They have calculated that the funding that enables students to get to university will be slashed by roughly 40%. Conservatives expressed similar concerns that Higher Education would not be funded properly, and wanted reassurance that the ending of the tuition fee grant would not mean students were stopped from "fulfilling their potential".

The government have also been condemned for turning their back on one of Wales’ most distinctive policies, and labelled hypocritical for the decision made by those who enjoyed a free university education. They experienced the benefits of this policy, but are now saying something different is needed for the new generation of students.

The recent rise in top-up fees in England has not had a drastically detrimental effect on the number of students applying to universities, but it remains to be seen how much these new measures influence young people in Wales looking at their options, and considering whether to go on to Higher Education.