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  3. Variable tuition fees will not create a two-tier market in higher education, insists a group of leading universities in a strong

Variable tuition fees will not create a two-tier market in higher education, insists a group of leading universities in a strong

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问题     Variable tuition fees will not create a two-tier market in higher education, insists a group of leading universities in a strong statement of support today for the government as it prepares to do parliamentary battle over its controversial top-up fees proposals.
    The 1994 Group, which includes research-intensive universities like Durham, St Andrews and the London School of Economics, also says it will support any reasonable scheme for student support that reassures people worried about poor students being deterred. This could include a national levy on universities based on their student numbers with the money being shared out among the poorest students wherever they study—reassuring new universities, which fear they will not generate enough fee income for bursaries. The worst possible outcome would be a political stalemate, say the vice-chancellors.
    Meanwhile Professor Tim Brighouse, the government’s schools "tsar" for London, is to propose that students from private schools pay higher university fees. In a keynote speech to next week’s North of England education conference he will argue that parents have bought their children an advantage in obtaining a university place and should pay an extra 10% charge for every year their child spent at an independent school. If they switched to state schooling—at a sixth-form college for example—they would earn a discount.
    In backing variable fees, the 1994 Group pointed out that part-time and postgraduate students already paid them. "That hasn’t created a two-tier market, because in reality the variation in fees between institutions is relatively modest in most cases. But students do understand that some courses cost more than others or are more valuable than others; and that these differences should be reflected in the contribution which graduates make to the cost of their own education," said the universities—Bath, Birkbeck, Durham, East Anglia, Essex, Exeter, Goldsmiths, Lancaster, LSE, Reading, Royal Holloway, St Andrews, Surrey, Sussex, Umist, Warwick, and York.
    Alasdair Smith, vice-chancellor of Sussex University, who chairs the 1994 Group, believes the proposal for fixed fees put forward by Labour backbenchers Peter Bradley and Alan Whitehead will not raise enough extra income for universities. He also argues that their plan, which has gained a lot of support among Labour MPs, would be unworkable because it would be impossible to prevent universities from offering discounts on some courses. A university might offer free accommodation for chemistry students, for instance, he suggests.
    The group’s statement recognises that the choices before parliament are not easy. "However, the very worst possible outcome would be for the government’s proposals to be defeated by a coalition of opponents no one part of which is in a position to deliver its own solution. The funding problem has been recognised. The government’s proposals are not a complete answer or a perfect answer but they do offer a constructive way forward. The government’s opponents should turn them down if they have a better solution which they can deliver; but our universities and the country deserve a solution not a political stalemate."
                                             From The Guardian, December 31, 2003
The word "backing" on the first line of the fourth paragraph has the closest meaning of______.
选项 A、returning
B、charging
C、supporting
D、replying
答案C
解析 本题为语义题。在不同语境下“back”可作动词、名词、副词、形容词，理解为“倒退”、 “背部”、 “向后”、 “后面的”，但根据上下文“In backing variable fees，the 1994 Group pointed out that…(为支持不定额费用，1994集团指出……)”，所以选C“支持”。
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