24/10/2011 Inside Out London

It will cost up to �9,000 a year to get a degree. But asking questions

costs nothing. What is the point of the university for the creative

arts? University fees explained. �75,000! And some of the rarest,

big cats in the world born and bred in Kent. We are keeping the species

alive, we are keeping the species pure so one day we will be in a

position we can release the species back into the wild. I am Natalie

Graham with untold stories closer to home. From all around Kent and

For tonight's programme we are in at the heart of the South Downs. It

is a stone's throw from two universities here, Sussex and

Brighton. Tonight we have a special edition

on higher education in Kent and Sussex. To kick-off, here's the

financial expert Alvin Hall. Young, confused and afraid? This is

what thousands of teenagers across Britain fear. A lifetime on the run.

But what is chasing them? Student debt. But is it really going to be

the horror movie we have been led to believe? Whether you think next

year's hike in fees is fair or not, it is happening. Young people need

to know the facts. I am going to show you what a degree will really

cost and how you can avoid those fees altogether.

Next year, English universities will charge up to �9,000 a year

with living costs on top, graduates can face debts of �50,000. How much

will they actually end up paying back. I have come to meet some

sixth-formers in Birmingham to show them. I think the number will shock

them. I think that earning interest over

such a long time of paying back that alone really is a number that

most people do not think about. Let's imagine you graduate from

university with �50,000 worth of debt. And you get a high-paying job

like we expect. How much of that money do you have to pay back?

I am not quite sure. All of it? You have to pay back all of it and more.

Interest. Interest. Oh God, is right. �75,000.

Is that just for one person? That is just for one person.

Is that for the average degree, three years?

It is. If you take out the maximum loan. But what if, for some reason,

their careers do not go as planned and they never earned more than

�21,000 a year. The amount you have to pay back is zero. So, what is

going on? Basically, the repayment of the loan works like taxes. The

more you earn, the more you pay back. If you never earn above a

certain amount, you never pay back a penny. The new independent task

force on student finance is led by Martin Lewis. The biggest confusion

out there is that people confuse the price tag, these �9,000 fees,

total of �50,000 at the end of university, with the actual cost.

Many people will not come close to repaying in full what they borrowed.

Some will not pay anything at all. The bewildering fact that we are

putting people off going to university because they are looking

at the price tag, not the cost is the biggest problem. Most graduates

will face large debt. Is there any way of avoiding the fees. You can

study abroad. At the recent Student World Fair in London, teenagers

discovered just how much they can save. I think everyone would rather

go to university where they are paying �8,000 cheaper than the UK.

The fees are a lot cheaper. That is more attractive so when you come

out you will not be in so much debt. Dozens of universities across

Europe offer courses taught in English. These differ from country

to country, but in Scandinavia it is free. In Denmark there is no

tuition fees at all because the Danish government pays for Danish

students and according to EU rules we have to treat other EU citizens

alike. Harriet has already taken the plunge. She is off back to

university in Slovakia. I'm am trying to save money on my flights,

so hand-luggage it is. Over there she saves a fortune on living costs

spending just �100 a month. I caught up with her. What advice

would you give to anyone considering doing what you have

done? If you are even considering it, I think you should go for it.

It is worth doing, you have to be brave, but I have never looked back.

Time is up. I want my money. I want my 50 grand. So studying overseas

may be one way to avoid the debt. But there are down sides. If you

study abroad, the government here will not give you a loan. Only some

courses are taught in English and some employers might not recognise

foreign degrees. You need to do your homework. Another way of

beating the fees is to get someone else to pay, but who? London's

financial heartland is a good place to look. Don't be fooled by power

suits, believe it or not, these youngsters are all freshers. They

are being sponsored by KPMG. entire package was a degree, a

salary, tuition fees are paid and a job at the end and you were helped

to become a qualified and chartered accountant. It sounds too good to

be true. There is no catch. I still have not seen a catch. As with

everything in life, you have to work hard, that is the only catch,

I guess. And the man who runs the programme tells me KPMG does not

offer the stereotypical student experience. This is an intensive

programme. They have got to work for us, they have got to study for

their degree. It requires hard work. That is what we ask of the students.

Then there are bursaries, students from low-income families can get

But is there another way of avoiding the debt? Well, you can

pay up front. 16 year-old Safina Adams is trying to do just that. As

well as studying for her A-levels, she sells beauty products on her

website. I started my business because I wanted to save up for

university and my parents said because of the rise in the

university fees, it would be too much for them to pay for it. I am

hoping to not get in debt because it takes a long time to get out of

debt and I do not want to be in that place. The government allows

students to pay up front, but most will have to take out a loan. But

one financial expert believes that graduates could end up paying back

far more than anyone has predicted. This financial journalist is

warning students to be aware. think the problem is the deal is

actually not a deal. There are all these numbers flying about saying

you'll be charged a certain rate of interest on the loan and your

repayments will start at �21,000, over that you will be paying a

percentage. None of that is in the contract that the students signed

up for. In fact, the Government can change those numbers if they want

to in five years' time, 10 years' time, 20 years' time. Students

could end up paying a lot more. big changes would have to be

approved by Parliament. Like many Americans, I graduated with the

equivalent of tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt. It was

daunting, but if you know the fact, student debt does not have to be

scary. I confronted it, and so can Alvin Hall reporting. Coming up

later, more on universities as part I would always advise a student to

pursue their interest, to pursue their passions. By doing that,

their employability will take care When you think of the big cat

habitats, what kind of places come to mind? The Serengeti, Cyberia,

You probably will not have seen them, and you certainly will not

have met them, but you might have heard them. Exotic, wild and

dangerous creatures that, for now at least, have made their home away

from public eyes, right in the And we have been given exclusive

access behind the scenes to meet the neighbours, some of the world's

rarest big cats. This is the Wildlife Heritage

Foundation's big cat sanctuary. Tucked away in the Kent countryside,

not many people know it is here. But 36 big cats live here, from

lions to leopards to lynx and most But we are going to concentrate on

two species. Spots and stripes. For the stripes we have the Sumatran

tiger. Nias is a bit special, it is thought only 200 pure Sumatran

tigers like him are left on his native island of Sumatra. And

representing the spots is Hogar the Amur Leopard. He is from the far

east of Russia. Experts believe only about 30 of these leopards

exist in the wild. The situation is critical and that makes Hoger one

of the rarest big cats in the world. These cats are part of an

international mission to save their species from extinction. With time

running out and so few of them left in the wild, how are they going to

Brian Badger is the sanctuary manager. He works with zoos across

the world breeding endangered big cats to release into the wild.

These cats are so beautiful, but they are in captivity. How will

they help an endangered species because this animal will never go

in the wild. It is important that we keep what we like to call a

genetic arc. We're keeping the species alive, we are keeping the

species pure so that one day, hopefully, the world will sort

itself out and we will be in a position where we can release them

back into the wild. Preserving endangered species is a worldwide

operation and it is all controlled Preserving endangered species is a

worldwide operation and it is all It is like a giant dating agency

for endangered species and it deals with genetics. The idea is that you

need to keep the members of the family as far apart as you possibly

can so you do not get in breeding and all the problems that are

related to that. Creating the purest bloodline is a tricky task.

Big cats are brought to the sanctuary from all over the world.

Nias the Sumatran tiger has hit it off with his partner Puna. Brian is

convinced she is pregnant. He thinks there will be cubs in a few

weeks' time. How can you tell she is pregnant?

She becomes very aggressive, very secretive. She is stalking through

the grass. How long do you think before they are born? If I was to

hazard a guess, probably about two weeks. And she was doing all that

running around? Tigers are solitary animals, the

fact that she is pregnant, she cannot treat that as a disability.

She still has to hunt she still has to defend herself she still has to

travel around and so if she makes herself hugely pregnant with huge

cubs and slouching around she is not going to survive in the wild.

Everything is prepared for the arrival of Puna's cubs. But there

is no time for staff at this sanctuary to relax, there is a new

cat in town. This leopard has travelled all the

way from a zoo in the Czech Republic to meet with Xizi. It is

not exactly love at first sight. They are aware of each other, but

there is a barrier between their enclosures. There is a gap between

each of those planks of wood so they can slowly get themselves

acquainted. Slowly but surely what we will start to do it is remove

periodically some of the planks so they will start appearing to each

other. That will give us a good guide. Just because you have a male

and female, it does not make them a couple. Today Hogar is being

checked out to see if he is suitable for the breeding programme.

He is in good hands as tests will be carried out by top international

wildlife vet John Lewis. John has got to make sure that

Hogar has been fully anaesthetised so it is safe to enter the cage and

work on him. We have to make certain he is asleep, so he is not

responding to the jaw opening or his ears been pinched. -- being a.

Me pinching hard between his toes. 1,2,3. Good, good. We take a lot of

samples, and a lot of the samples are blood. We take hair samples and

various other things. We can do tests on those samples, but we also

have to examine him in detail from nose to tail. We need to be really

convinced that all parts of him are healthy, that he has no genetic

defects, that he is not carrying diseases which he is not suffering

from but other cats here may suffer from. We have got to be sure we

have a good specimen for breeding. It is hoped he will get the all-

clear to mate with Xizi. Any cubs they produce will be a huge leap

forward in the plans to reintroduce Amur leopards to their native land

in the far east of Russia. We do not just breed leopards in

captivity and throw them out into the wild, that would not work. The

only way it can be done is to breed these leopards in captivity, to

make certain they are very healthy, to take some, young adult leopards

from that programme and keep them in a captive facility next to where

you're going to release them. It is not those leopards that are

released, it is their offspring. They have to breed there. That

means that the cubs born there are born in Russian conditions, they

experienced Russian weather, they get exposed to Russian diseases,

they feed on live prey like wild leopards do, and they have a chance

of surviving. If the whole scheme goes ahead, this would be the first

time it has been done. They are stunning creatures. To lose them

would be an indescribable tragedy. Luckily, Hogar got the all-clear,

but he has still not been introduced to Xizi. In the wild,

leopards only ever come together to meet, so Brian has to make sure the

timing is exactly right. -- made a. Xizi has to be in season otherwise

they will fight and could end up killing each other. It will

probably be a good few months until they are ready to mate so for now

But for the Sumatran tigers, the waiting game is over. Puna is now

the proud mum of two male tiger cubs. They are five weeks old and I

am back to meet them. Brian has invited me to do the

health check with him. Not many people had been inside to see the

cubs like this. Not many people in the world have probably seen tiger

cubs this close. I'm really excited Let's go. He is picking one up.

Hello. You might have to give me a hand, is that OK? Yes. Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh. How soon before they become too dangerous to handle?

They are fully weaned, normally, by 10 - 15 weeks. Any time after that

they get to the size of a labrador or, that sort of size. Even now,

that little yawn, they have got a set of teeth and a full set of

claws. How does it feel having these cubs here? It is fantastic.

As a breeding centre, this is what it is all about. To produce

something so rare is very special. And so sad when they go? In some

ways. You get attached to them, though we are not here for us,

we're here for them. There are only 200 Sumatra tigers left in the wild

in the world. Here we have got two little clubs that are going to help

the programme. Let's hope that one day these guys will be the

grandparents of a new, wild Kaddy Lee-Preston reporting.

Earlier, we saw Alvin Hall's consumer guide for students. Now,

we've got five universities here in the south-east. What have they got

to offer in return for your cash? Is it just the chance of getting a

good job, or is it more than that? When it all kicked off over the

tuition fees... If 50,000 students have come to protest peacefully.

Our reporter was in the thick of it. They are in jeopardy are being

undermined by the violent actions of a small minority. He was the

President of the National Student of unions -- National Union of

Students at the time. The silence, silence. War we are not going to

put up with an hour education being treated like this. Hello. Students

clearly don't like it, but now a university can charge up to �9,000

per year. It must a been a busy time.

very tough, pretty hairy at times. A survey commissioned by Inside Out

suggests that one in 10 A-level students had been put off

university because of the increasing tuition fees, but many

of the rest of focused on getting a job to pay the loans back. But the

thing is, are we losing sight of what a university is actually for?

It is a good question. And we would like an answer. So we have got a

plan, haven't we? Yes, we are going to go to every university in the

south-east and give them some cold, hard facts and find out what we are

going to get for our money. First, the University for the Creative

Arts. Hansson the Hibs and lean forward. UCA has campuses in

Maidstone and Rogers de amongst others, and maybe teach art design

and fashion. Cadillac is the 152nd university in terms of satisfaction

-- UCA. 89.8% of students get a job or go on into full-time study.

The league table performances are generally very poor and the

institution has taken the decision to charge �1,500 across the board.

Would you consider that far you for money? Certainly. You have to

consider that students have access to our facilities, a studio,

technical facilities, technical staff, academic staff, in a quite

different way to students at other universities. And so it was quite

impossible, I think, to put the tuition fees any lower. I think it

is value for money. I would like to ask a deceptively simple question.

The so what is the point of the university for the creative arts?

think it is history of art and design, media and arts, creative

arts and education, and it is a demanding education but it has been

at the core of the success of British great -- creative industry

for the last 100 years. Next up, the University of Brighton. They

rate 92nd in the Countryfile student satisfaction. 88.5% get

jobs -- in the country before student satisfaction. Will we

wanted to ask what is the point at the University of Brighton but they

told us no one was available for comment. Next, Canterbury

Christchurch University. Students rated it as number 110. Employment,

94.3%. They charge �8,500. We felt we should be able to stand up in

front of our communities and our students and say, this is value-

for-money. So you can genuinely say, hand on heart, it was not an

opportunity to cash in and make some money out of this and spend it

wherever else you wanted to? That is exactly the position we have

taken. So what is the point of Canterbury Christ Church

University? The point of the university is to prepare people.

Prepare people for a life which is more fulfilling a, a more

interesting, hopefully, which provides them with employment,

which is stimulating and support the quality of life, but actually

encourages them to ask a critical questions in a society where, I

fear, that capacity is actually been lost. Next up, it's the

University of Sussex. Sussex's in the students' chart at number 30.

92.2% get jobs or go on to further education. We wanted to ask what is

the point of Sussex University but they told us that no one was

available to comment. So we move on. Next, the University of Kent. They

are numbered 26 in the chart. Their employment number is 91%.

You have taken the decision to charge �9,000 across the board,

does it represent value for money for students? It is absolute value

for money. I'm sure the real cost is higher when you hate take into

account the costs of what we have to do. What would you consider to

be the point at the University of Kent? I believe it is about the

creation and communication of knowledge. We love discovering new

things which is important in all disciplines, and communicating that

two other generations and allowing them not just to be taught to but

to understand what it means to develop themselves. University

should be life-changing. Because of a whole debate over tuition fees,

people have understandably been focused on the cost of the course,

and whether there would be a good job at the end of it. However...

Are we in danger of losing sight of what the university is actually

for? I think there is a danger of that, actually. The focus on

employability has been a little too strong. That must depend on the

university. Here, we have been clear ever since we started talking

about changes, pre-Brown, that universities are about creation of

knowledge and research and communication of knowledge,

teaching. That combination. notion that a university is solely

the deliverer of an insurance policy for the future is actually a

massive step back in terms of society and -- in this country,

because universities are much more than that. I would always advise

the students to pursue their interests and their passions, and I

think by doing that, their employability will pretty much take

care of itself. As we had earlier, it is suggested that one in 10 A-

level students have been put off university. But if you do go, don't

forget what the university is actually for. Why was the first

person in my family to go to university -- I was. And I have

enjoyed a much greater quality of life. I have a richer environment

in which I operate, an environment in which I can ask questions, in

which I can opt sop knowledge -- absorb knowledge and in which I

feel confident to debate and have discourse. By parents didn't have

that and that is what university education did for me and that is

what it is all about. Now, if you want any more

information on tonight's show, you can visit our local Kent or Sussex