Osborne’s ‘disgraceful’ overhaul ‘betrays a generation’

George Osborne’s decision to impose a near £3,000 increase in student loan repayments is likely to deter young people from going to university and hit disadvantaged students hardest, critics have said.

Martin Lewis, the personal finance expert who led a taskforce to help explain the new tuition loan scheme, attacked the decision to backdate the change to 2012, announced by the chancellor as part of his spending review.

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Sir Peter Lampl, the campaigner for improved access to higher education who founded the Sutton Trust, also criticised the move in unusually strong terms, saying he deplored it as “something that damages trust in the loans system”.

The Sutton Trust argued that “uncertainty created by the proposed changes [in effect] forces students to write an ‘open cheque’. This may discourage participation or distort decisions as to where, what and how to study”.

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