Undergraduate Student Funding in England: The Challenges Ahead for Equity

Abstract

Abstract: Since 1990, a series of cost-sharing policies in England have changed how higher education and undergraduates are funded. A funding system predicated on student loan debt emerged, informed by neo-liberal thinking and ideas underpinning the marketization of higher education. Annual tuition fees of £9000 were introduced in 2012 for all full-time undergraduates, repaid by loans with repayments linked to graduates’ ability to pay. Sustaining these reforms and evidenced in the policy rhetoric, are a range of unsubstantiated assumptions about their impact, the benefits of student loans, and their effect on student behaviour. Loans sought to protect students from tuition fee increases, to make higher education more affordable, to encourage and widen higher education participation, and to promote student choice. But these aims have been realised only partially, and the 2012 reforms can undermine these aims. Student loans have not been embraced equally by all students, as anticipated. The financial and psychic costs of borrowing can limit students’ higher education and post-graduation choices, opportunities, and experiences. But such occurrences are not random—they are socially stratified. Those students who are already disadvantaged are the most negatively affected. The student funding reforms in England, therefore, have helped to perpetuate rather than just ameliorate existing inequalities.