Campuses urged to review ‘inexcusable’ PhD late-submission fees

Universities have been urged to review “inexcusable” fees levied on doctoral students who submit their thesis late – with some institutions charging as much as £350 a month.

Doctoral students at UK universities who finish their postgraduate research are normally allowed to transfer to what is known as “writing up” status, which enables them to access institutional resources and, in some cases, limited supervision. By doing so, they are no longer required to pay the fees charged in the first three or four years of a doctorate and instead pay a smaller “writing up fee” or “continuation fee”.

However, institutions charge dramatically different fees, with some waiving them altogether, while others levy hefty monthly fines, according to a Times Higher Education analysis.

The University of Nottingham had the highest fees in the Russell Group, charging £350 for every month that doctoral candidates go beyond their agreed submission date, in addition to a £160 fee for extending a thesis submission date and £160 for registration for a thesis-pending period.

The University of Edinburgh charges an annual continuation fee of £770, charged monthly pro rata, in addition to a £160 matriculation fee, although continuation fees are waived when they are linked to Covid-19. The University of Sheffield charges an annual continuation fee of £465, though this is refunded if students submit their thesis in the first three months of the fourth year, with reduced pro-rata discounts offered for submission later in the year.

Durham University normally charges 15 per cent of domestic fees, about £560, but told THE it has suspended continuation fees from the start of the pandemic until the end of 2021.

Other Russell Group institutions charge lower continuation fees; at the universities of York and Glasgow, it is £350, while the University of Leeds charges £265.

At UCL, which has about 5,000 PhD students, doctoral candidates are offered a full year’s writing-up period free of charge, which has been extended by six months for full-time students. Students can also apply for further extensions, which a UCL spokeswoman said were “approved regularly…and, in some cases, retrospectively” in the case of Covid-related disruption. Late-submission fees for unapproved extensions can cost up to £2,685 but imposing them was “very rare”, UCL said.

A Nottingham spokeswoman told THE that students were offered writing-up periods of up to 12 months, which could be extended if required. “The [late submission] fee is very rarely invoked, is seldom for more than one month, and would not apply to individuals who have extenuating circumstances,” she said, adding that doctoral students have been given an automatic six-month extension of registered study time as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The fees were “not intended to penalise students who have genuine reasons for needing extensions” but “largely serve to encourage students to work towards any previously agreed submission date, or to maintain contact with the university about any extenuating circumstances”, the university added.

Philip Moriarty, professor of physics at Nottingham, said it was hard to see why continuation fees and procedures varied so much across universities.

“Shouldn’t there be a standard, regulated charge, especially for students at different institutions but funded by the same research council?” Professor Moriarty asked. “Why should an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council-funded student at Nottingham, say, be expected to pay more in late-submission fees than an EPSRC-funded student at another institution?

“When the fees stack up, they don’t act as an encouragement for students to submit – they actively discourage and demoralise them. That was inexcusable in the ‘before times’; it’s nothing short of obscene in the Covid era.”

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com