Scrap uni fees for poorest & raise them for richest

Our new report, Fairer Fees, is featured in an article by Mark Ellis for the Daily Mirror and a poll asking ‘should tuition fees be means-tested’ is posed to readers. 

Students from the richest homes should pay £12,250 a year in tuition fees, while going to university should cost the poorest nothing, it has been suggested. A means-tested system could cut average student debt by a third, with those from the most disadvantaged families benefiting the most, according to a new study published the Sutton Trust. The social mobility charity also called for grants designed to help less well-off students with living costs to be reintroduced, warning that it is an “absolute scandal” that the poorest are graduating with the highest levels of debt.

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An analysis conducted by London Economics for the Sutton Trust concludes that raising the repayment threshold will mean that 45% of student debt will never be paid back, while around four fifths of graduates will not repay their loans in full. The debt is written off after 30 years.

The Trust calls for a means-tested system, with those from a household with an income of under £25,000 paying no tuition fees, those from homes with an income of over £100,000 paying £12,250 and a sliding scale for those in between. Currently, students graduate with an average debt of £46,000, the report says. The 40% poorest students have average debts of £51,600, mainly due to needing larger maintenance loans, while those from the 20% richest households have average debts of around £38,400. A means-tested fees system, and bringing back maintenance grants, would cut overall average student debt in half to £23,300, and reduce it by 75% for the poorest students to an average of £12,700.

Sir Peter Lampl, Sutton Trust chairman, said: “It’s an absolute scandal that the poorest students graduate with the highest debt. A typical graduate will leave university with whopping debts of £46,000 while young people from households in the lowest 40% of earners will graduate with debts of nearly £52,000. These debt levels are almost double those of American university graduates.

“We are proposing that fees should be means-tested and maintenance grants reintroduced so that those from low income families incur the lowest debts. Our proposals are an affordable and fair alternative to the current system where fees are not means-tested and there are no maintenance grants.”

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You can read the full article here.and find the polling below.