Plaid Cymru will reduce university tuition fees, with the long-term goal of making it free, if elected next month, the party’s leader has said.

A Plaid Cymru government would initially cut the maximum fee chargeable to Welsh-domiciled students at Welsh universities to £7,500, if elected in the Senedd elections in May.

Leader Adam Price said a Plaid government would also raise the teaching grant payment associated with each student to better reflect their subject’s reasonable costs and its social economic value to students and taxpayers.

He added that Plaid Cymru would also increase grant funding for the most disadvantaged students so that more financial resources reach the institutions educating the students that are most likely to need extra support.

Mr Price said: “Young people have been hit particularly hard by the Covid pandemic with many of them left rethinking their future options.

“We want to make access to a university education as much of a level playing field as possible, eventually making university education free once again.

“A Plaid Cymru government’s first step towards achieving this goal would be to cap tuition fees for Welsh-domiciled students at Welsh universities at £7,500 – a reduction of £1,500.

“We will in tandem increase the level of direct university funding, adjusting the teaching grant payment associated with each student to better reflect the subject’s reasonable costs and its social and economic value to students and taxpayers.

“To make sure disadvantaged students get the support they need, a Plaid government would also increase the amount of teaching grant funding that follows them so that the right financial resources flow to those institutions educating the students most likely to need such support.

“We want to reverse the brain-drain that’s happened in recent years by incentivising our young people to stay in Wales to study.

"Cutting tuition fees while investing more in Welsh universities – for example through the £100m increase annually in government funding for university research – will make Welsh universities more attractive to our young people, encouraging more of them in future to stay here to work and live after graduating.”