Free masters classes

Royal Holloway, University of London, is devising a scheme to offer graduates free places or subsidised tuition for masters degrees from 2009. Between 100 and 150 places a year would be available to those who gained a first-class or upper-second degree from the college. The places would be worth about Pounds 3,000 apiece and would cover the cost of some courses or reduce the fees in other cases. Stephen Hill, the principal of Royal Holloway, said: "We believe it is important to address the problems that undergraduate debt will create for postgraduate education at the end of the decade."