Some recruitment brochures can be pictorially misleading. Judged in context, fieldwork is not excessively expensive. Students will pay more to experience fieldwork in exotic locations, but this discriminates in favour of the well-off.
Students are generally opposed to having to contribute financially to compulsory courses.
Fieldcourses are undoubtedly the highlight of most students' biological degrees and a priceless asset both in terms of personal development, and in giving intellectual nourishment to the next generation whose job it will be to sort out our environmental legacy. The economic fragility of fieldcourse provision throughout the UK Higher Education sector gives rise for serious concern.