The Chancellor of Oxford University, Lord Patten, has called for the cap on tuition fees to be scrapped.

In a speech at the Independent Schools’ Council annual conference in London, Patten said the current limit was “preposterous”. Removing the current cap for British students’ fees (£3,225 per year) would, he said, help meet the cost of teaching students, and help to maintain the world-class status of universities such as Oxford.

Patten remarked, “Speaking entirely for myself…I would be prepared to cap the present funding of our teaching grant if we were able as a result to set whatever tuition fee we wanted, provided that we could demonstrate that we were still guaranteeing needs-blind access with generous bursaries.”

Patten noted that teaching an undergraduate at Oxford costs approximately £16,000, about half of which is currently met by publicly funded teaching grants and tuition fees.

International students’ fees are not subject to a cap. For example, a student from overseas reading humanities or social sciences will have to pay £12,200 per year for 2010-11, as well as college fees. For sciences, the cost of tuition rises to £14,000 per year.

Removing the cap on tuition fees for home undergraduates would create a system in the UK similar to that which exists in the USA. For the current academic year, Harvard is charging $33,696 in tuition fees. Princeton is charging $35,340 for the same period.

Student reaction to Patten’s proposals has been mixed. Olly Richards, a second-year History student, reacted angrily. “I think it is a preposterous idea. The university is continually lambasted for not accepting enough state school students and this is a move which will further alienate this potential student base.”

Ellie Taylor, a second-year Modern Languages student, disagrees. “We still pay very little relative to the actual cost of university education, and if it means that I receive the highest possible quality education, I would be prepared to pay more, provided those who genuinely could not afford the increase were protected.”

An Oxford University spokesperson was keen to emphasise that Lord Patten’s views were not shared by the University, commenting, “The Chancellor was speaking in his own personal capacity. The University does not yet have a settled position on the fees question.

“Our initial submission to the Browne Review made clear that the University is faced with significant underfunding of undergraduate teaching. We are clear, however, that the gap cannot be addressed by fees alone. We are also clear that whatever happens with fees, access must be regardless of finances. Any increase in fees would have to be matched by bursaries serving to protect the principle of needs blind access for all students.”

Jonny Medland, OUSU VP (Access & Academic Affairs) commented, “We’re used to Lord Patten calling for the cap to come off fees but his ideas remain dangerous and irresponsible. An open market between universities risks deterring students from applying to the best institutions and undermining decades of work which Oxford has put into expanding access to the university.

“The students of Oxford have voted in support of a progressive graduate contribution to higher education – this should be based on the ability of graduates to pay, rather than on the risk that they’re willing to take aged 18. Both Oxford’s local MPs agreed to our agenda on funding within 24 hours of the Browne Review being announced.”

The Chancellor’s speech came in the same week as higher education institutions were told by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) of the extent of cuts to their budgets. Oxford’s income will be reduced in real terms by 1 per cent from 2010-11.

David Lammy, the Higher Education Minister, said, “These changes come after years of sustained investment. Higher education funding is up by 25% in real terms since 1997. Like everyone in the current financial climate, institutions have to do their fair share of belt-tightening.”

Dr Steve Goddard, a University lecturer and Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Oxford East, reacted critically, commenting, “These cuts are a serious setback. Hugely important research may be hit and teaching budgets cut.”

An Oxford Professor accused of donating money to Hamas is making his first visit to America since his visa was revoked.

On the 8th of April, Professor Tariq Ramadan will speak at the Cooper Union in New York City, on the subject of “Secularism, Islam and Democracy: Muslims in Europe and the West”. This will be his first visit to America since 2004 when he was barred from visiting the country under the Patriot Act.

Professor Ramadan was accused of donating $1,300 to a charity that funnelled money to Hamas, which is viewed as a terrorist organisation in the United States. At the time he was working at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

Following this accusation, Ramadan’s American visa was revoked by the Department of Homeland Security. He subsequently resigned from his post at Notre Dame.

The Professor maintained that he did not realise where or to whom the money was going and sued for the reinstatement of his visa. In July 2009, a Federal Appeals Court reversed the ruling against him. In January 2010, the restriction against Ramadan was lifted, so that he could reapply for a visa.

Professor Ramadan is currently the Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at the Oriental Institute at St Antony’s College, Oxford. He was employed by one of Oxford’s academic departments in 2005, one year after being was barred from the United States.

The University Press Office declined to comment on the issue, stating “It is a matter for Professor Ramadan.”

The Editor of Oxford Today has been told that his job is under review.

Some members of the magazine’s editorial board now claim that the move comes as part of a drive to force the publication to take a more ‘corporate’ line.

Oxford Today is a termly magazine published by the University.

Members of the Editorial Advisory Board discussed the possibility of resigning to express their anger that the decision to review Editor Greg Neale’s position was taken without their consent.

The magazine covers all aspects of the life at Oxford and its colleges, as well as historical features about the University and its alumni. It is distributed to around 150,000 alumni worldwide.

Several members of the Advisory Board have expressed the opinion that the review is part of a wider scheme that would force the magazine to take a more corporate line, and become a platform for the University.

Traditionally it is an independent “Prospect style” magazine.

Neale has said he would not allow the alumni magazine to become a “puppet of the University”.

One member of the Editorial Advisory Board, who wished to remain anonymous, told Cherwell, “The editorial independence of Oxford Today is now on the line.

“The very members of the Editorial Advisory Board charged with protecting [Oxford Today‘s] freedom and determining its content are being told to look the other way while faceless people on shadowy committees all determine a new publisher, a new editor and a new direction for the magazine.”

In an uncharacteristically heated meeting last Tuesday, the majority of the 14-strong Editorial Advisory Board expressed their anger at Jeremy Harris, the University’s Director of Public Affairs. Harris, along with the Oxford Today Strategic Board, took the decision to review Neale’s position as Editor.

At one point Harris, rejecting any idea of censorship, reportedly pounded the table with his fists.

A member of the Board told Cherwell that immediately following this meeting, many of the Editorial Advisory Board held “an informal discussion” where “they agreed to consider their positions”.

Oxford University’s Chancellor, Lord Patten, shares the Board’s concern for the editorial independence of Oxford Today. At the Open Forum for alumni in September 2008, he said that “the last thing we want is some sort of North Korea Times.”

However, the University denies that the decision to review the editorship is a question of journalistic independence.

In a letter sent to the Board on 25th January, Harris said that the decision to select a new editor was necessary because of a “contractual arrangement” whereby the editor was employed by the publishers.

The current publishers, Wiley-Blackwell, will not be renewing their contract when it expires in the summer.

A University spokesperson said, “a new publisher is currently being appointed and in due course they will participate, as in the past, in the selection process of the editor, with whom they will sign a new freelance contract.

“This will again be by an open and competitive process, in which the present editor is of course fully in a position to take part.”

Many observers question the procedural necessity of asking Neale to competitively reapply for his job. One Board member suggested that the University was using the circumstances over the new publishing contract as “an excuse to oust Greg.”

There is, however, no evidence behind this claim, which Harris and the University have denied.

A senior member of the Editorial Advisory Board said, “Greg Neale has been an excellent Editor of Oxford Today. Many of the members of the Board strongly support him staying on as Editor.”

Many individuals on the Editorial Advisory Board feel that it is their responsibility to appoint an Editor, and are puzzled as to why the decision to review Neale’s position as Editor has been made elsewhere. The decision was taken by the Oxford Today Strategic Board.

Mary Dejevsky, Chief Editorial Writer at The Independent and member of the Editorial Advisory Board, said that during the meeting she “probed the question of what the Editorial Board was for.”

In a large online readership survey last year, 92% of readers endorsed Neale’s performance as editor of Oxford Today.

The main complaint to emerge from the survey was that the magazine was not independent enough from the University. Ten percent of respondents urged Oxford Today to become “less formal” and more “controversial”.

Neale has been editor of Oxford Today since Michaelmas 2007. Neale will be Editor of next term’s magazine, however the future of his position as Editor remains uncertain.

An inquest began this week into the death of Toby Rundle, an LMH student who was found hanged in his room last October.

The inquest heard that the night before his death, Rundle had been drinking at the college bar with some friends, before going to the Oxford nightclub, Escape. Upon returning to college, he went to the room of Clement Knox, a fellow LMH student and friend of Rundle’s, which he refused to leave. Knox told the inquest that Rundle was “being quite mischievous”, lying in his bed pretending to be asleep.

Knox explained that he dragged Rundle out of his room at about 2.30am, and that he was apologetic when he realised he had annoyed his friend. Knox found Rundle’s body later that afternoon, when other students became suspicious that they had not seen him that day.

Rundles’s father told Oxford Coroner’s Court that his son’s death had come “out of the blue”. The death occurred just a week before the conclusion of the inquest into the death of another LMH student, John Ddungu, who passed away in February 2009.

Mr. Rundle explained that he and his son had discussed the suicide of Ddungu, telling the inquest, “[Toby] said that having seen the damage to the other boy’s family, that was the last thing he would ever contemplate.”

A post-mortem showed that Rundle had over two-and-a-half times the legal alcohol driving limit in his blood stream and that he had died of asphyxiation. There were no traces of drugs found in his body.

Rundle, from Somerset, was in his final year at Oxford, reading English and Classics. He came to national attention in June 2007, when he sold a first edition of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”, for £7,200 at an auction. He used the money to pay his university fees.

The University counseling service has been offering extra support this year for LMH students.

A fire broke out in the Chemistry department in the early hours of Friday morning.

Security staff spotted the fire at around 4am on Friday 12th April. The fire brigade were immediately called, who quickly brought the blaze under control.

One staff member was given “precautionary medical checks” but no one was hurt in the fire.

The cause of the fire is still unknown, though a spokesman for the University said, “there are no indications of criminal activity and there was no risk to the public.”

The laboratory concerned was damaged but the fire did not spread further.

Conservative Shadow Minister Tim Loughton said that children’s welfare issues such as the Baby P debate were too “dull and gory” to discuss at an Oxford Conservative Association dinner.

When approached by a Daily Mirror journalist for comment, the MP claimed that the Cherwell reporter present had been drunk and misquoted him.

However, others present have confirmed that the student journalist had not drunk any alcohol, and the reporter stands by the quotations in their article.

The article (‘OCA: Now we care and share’, 5 March) reported a speech given by Loughton, currently Shadow Minister for Children, at a Conservative Association event.

The dinner, which had been advertised as a launch of the Oxford Conservative Association’s new policy document on social inequality and mobility, was held at the exclusive Landsdowne private member’s club in London.

Before the speech Loughton said that discussing child issues such as Baby P would be “too dull and gory for this time of night,” and instead spoke about a Channel Four documentary he had recently participated in, in which members of parliament were sent to live in problem-area estates.

He described one residence in the Birmingham estate he was assigned to as “a complete crap hole”.

When contacted by the national newspaper’s political correspondent for a comment on what was said, Loughton denied these claims and said he believed the journalist present had been drunk.

“She was quite pissed and must have been mistaken,” Loughton told the correspondent. The newspaper subsequently dropped the story.

However, a guest at the dinner who has no ties to the Oxford Conservative Association, said, “I spoke to [the reporter] at dinner and we had a conversation about how she does not drink wine. I can confirm that she did not drink anything at all.

“In fact at the end of the meal, when we were splitting the bill, she raised the point again that she had not drunk wine and so did not wish to be charged for it. All guests were party to this conversation,” they said.

Camilla Turner, who covered the story, said “I have comprehensive notes of what was said, and was not drunk, as has been shown. If Loughton’s office really had a problem with it, it seems to me they would have complained when the article first went up on the Cherwell website a couple of weeks ago.”

When Loughton’s office was contacted by Cherwell for a comment, it said that “Tim gave no approval for any quotes.”

“As Tim did not make those remarks he has nothing to retract,” a spokesperson from his office said.

Loughton hit headlines on Thursday for arguing that children should be prosecuted for having sex under the age of sixteen.