To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the cost would be of abolishing university tuition fees in 2003–04. [113971]

For 2003–04, the standard tuition fee contribution for full-time home and EU students of £1,125 is estimated to raise around £887 million for English institutions and around £60 million for Welsh institutions. The public and private fee elements for these figures can be broken down into:

£ million
2003–04 estimate	England	Wales
Public contributions to fees	456	31
Private contributions towards the cost of tuition	431	29
Total	887	60

Should private contributions to the cost of tuition be abolished, the additional cost to the Government of reimbursing higher education institutions in England and Wales for this loss of income is the private contribution set out in the table. If private contributions were abolished and no additional public funding was found, about 90,000 student places would be lost, a figure confirmed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.