Article. Finished.

Students will have to pay £6000 to £9000 for a degree course starting in 2012. Universities will be allowed to charge £6000 or £9000, depending on the extra support for students. Currently students pay £3.200. Students will be able to get a government funded loan to help them pay for course and living costs. They will have to pay it back when they start earning more than £21.000 a year. This has also increased from £15.000. This will affect students who can’t pay their fees upfront. The interest rate will increase by 3%. Students wanting to repay money early will have to pay 5% more.

The increasing costs of tuition fees will replace the public funding which was withdrawn from universities. It’s said that tuition fees must increase in order to maintain decent teaching standards and institutions.

Critics warned that the increase will hit those from middle – class families and make universities unpopular.  Many teenagers will turn their back on university education.

A report by the National Union of students and HSBC shows that 70% of students would put off university if fees would increase to £7000 a year. The higher fees increase the higher percentage of students will not go to university.

Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, said: “In the context of the current recession, it is extremely arrogant for university vice chancellors to be fantasising about charging their students even higher fees and plunging them into over £32,000 of debt”.

Students are applying to universities this year in order to start their course before the introduction of tuition fees.

Figures released by UCAS show that 8000 more students applied to universities. It’s 2.5% more than last year. The competition will be just as fierce as last year because there will be more applications before the deadline.

According to UCAS figures medicine related subjects are popular and number of applications to Linguistics and Classics are decreasing.

Further improvements.

This is the front cover of my newspaper at the moment. There's a big space between my masthead and headline. I will add article names and features that are in the newspaper. This will let the audience see what's inside the newspaper without opening it.

I will finish my article and write two more columns. Add a quote, few photos and opinions of students.

This is how my masthead looks now. I believe that it's more eye catching and people would notice the newspaper.

The title of the newspaper stands out and is clear, there's a contrast between the background and the name of the newspaper. I've placed the logo in the middle, it's like a separation between the information and the title.
"Your Local Wake Up Call! Features & News for Basildon & Area" - this tells the audience that it's a local paper.
I've also put the date it's starting and how much it costs. I decided not to make it too expensive because local newspapers are usually free or cheaper than the others.

I decided to change my logo and make it look more like a globe. I found a picture on the internet and changed it completely, shading and the look of it.

This is how it looked like before I did changes to it:

This is how it looks after I changed it:

I've added black outline to make it stand out and also made it black and white because my newspaper will be black and white. Changed brightness and contrast of the globe. I think this will suit my newspaper front page more because now it looks like a globe.

This is first part of my article :

Students will have to pay £6000 to £9000 for a degree course starting in 2012. Universities will be allowed to charge £6000 or £9000, depending on the extra support for students. Currently students pay £3.200. Students will be able to get a government funded loan to help them pay for course and living costs. They will have to pay it back when they start earning more than £21.000 a year. This has also increased from £15.000. This will affect students who can’t pay their fees upfront. The interest rate will increase by 3%. Students wanting to repay money early will have to pay 5% more.

The increasing costs of tuition fees will replace the public funding which was withdrawn from universities. It’s said that tuition fees must increase in order to maintain decent teaching standards and institutions.

Critics warned that the increase will hit those from middle – class families and make universities unpopular.  

I've asked for feedback on this article. My friend said that it is very factual and suits the newspaper because my target audience is business people and older people, not teenagers. She also said that I could add opinions of the students and also from the government. Use quotes. This would make the article more formal and interesting.

This is a short explanation of my layout. Main story will be increasing university fees. I will create an article about it and place it in the four columns on my front cover. I will put student photos and quotes on the left side. I believe this is good because it is an important issue at the moment and I will use all of my cover for this. 

I will take photo of money and put this as the main photo, representing increasing fees. 

Further improvement of my newspaper cover. This is most suitable layout so far.