The following is a summary of my/MSE’s full submission to the Government’s Augar review of higher education.

On 6 April, we’ll see the biggest change to hit student finance since the new system launched in 2012. It’ll mean millions of university leavers will repay less, not just each month, but many (not all) will see the amount they repay in total reduced by £1,000s. While it affects almost all uni leavers to an extent,...

Student loans are a political hot potato and widely misunderstood. I recently blogged on why, bizarrely, cutting tuition fees risks hurting not helping most graduates and within the logic of that I explained it is predicted that 83% of university leavers under the newest English system won’t repay their loans in full within the 30 years before they wipe....

The news again has been full of talk about cutting English tuition fees from £9,250 to, say, £6,000. While psychologically attractive – as it reduces the perceived ‘debt’ – the practical impact is to take money off universities, risking the quality of education, and handing it to very high-earning graduates. I bashed out this explanation on my...

Like all with greying hair, I wish I could counsel my 20-year-old self – not just to steer his decisions, but to help reassure and take the pressure off making them. In November 2016, I was lucky enough to do the next best thing. The BBC’s One Show asked if I’d give an hour’s life lecture to...

If you started university between 1998 and 2012, the Government plans to sell your student loan to the City. If you started in 2012 or beyond, chances are the same will happen to you. If you went before 1998 then your loan has already been sold, and you probably know there were substantial problems. The House of Lords’...

  The amount of the living loan that students aged under 25 get when they go to university is dictated by a means test of their PARENTS’ income.  A reduction in the living loan starts for students from families with incomes of just £25,000/yr and the amount received can be halved for those whose parents earn £60,000. In...

Update Note 25 May 2017: The ready reckoners below have been updated with the new 2017/2018 living loan amounts. Also since first writing this blog, and seeing the strength of feeling it attracted, I have written an open letter to the Uni Minister asking him to start telling people about this. Yet sadly received his no we won’t...

You graduate from uni, ready to face the world – check your student loan statement online and discover £150 a month interest is being added. It’s a frightening prospect. However, for many people this statement and the interest added is irrelevant and may as well be ignored. I’ve often heard it said that all English students in England who...