All Welsh universities – and four of the country’s colleges – want to charge annual fees of more than £4,000 by autumn 2012. But to do this, they had to submit plans to subsidise more low-income students. These plans had to be endorsed by the quango that is in charge of allocating public funds, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (Hefcw).

However, the quango has told all 10 universities and the four colleges that their plans were not ambitious enough and that they would have to rewrite them if they were to charge higher fees. The move will be closely watched by universities in England, where the same could happen.”

A number of Welsh Universities have rural hinterlands indeed and significant importance in terms of sustaining their local rural economies. It would be very interesting to consider the economic impact of changing funding and operational activities of universities and HE institutions on English rural economies.

I was in Cirencester this week prior to delivering a talk on our new rural survey outcomes and found myself thinking the night before the event – what do people in this place do for a living? Once I got the Royal Agricultural College to spread the good word amongst the serried professional ranks of Surveyors at the conference I was able to reflect in part at least on this institution being part of my answer!