Students at the University of York's West Campus.The cap on tuition fees will rise to £9,535 a year from 2025, education secretary Bridget Phillipson has announced.It is the first time the charges have gone up in more than seven years and comes amid warnings the university sector is facing a funding crisis.The move, which kicks in next April, will be welcomed by higher education bosses, but is likely to spark anger among students and their families.It is also embarrassing for Keir Starmer, who pledged to scrap tuition fees when he ran to be Labour leader in 2020.Phillipson told MPs “this is not a decision I take any pleasure in”, but insisted she had no choice given the state of university finances left by the last Tory government.She said: “We will fix the foundations, we will secure the future of higher education so that students can benefit from a world-class education for generations to come.“That is why I am announcing today that in line with the forecast set out in the Budget last week, from April 2025 we will be increasing the maximum cap for tuition fees, in line with inflation, to £9,535, an increase of £285 per acad