Keir Starmer has been warned that he has “no easy options” over student loans and higher education financing, after the Labour leader’s decision to scrap an earlier policy of abolishing tuition fees in England.
Experts and education leaders who have advised or been consulted by Labour have told the party that universities face greater financial difficulties than before the 2017 or 2019 elections, while the country’s economic difficulties leave it with less fiscal room to help students.
Radical changes, such as replacing the current system of student loans and tuition fees with a graduate tax, appear to be off the table but sector leaders are advising that a Labour government could revive teaching and maintenance grants to fill the most immediate budget gaps for students and universities.
In the longer term, university leaders say they want an independent review to address the financial problems facing higher and further education, similar to the Dearing review in 1997 and the Browne review in 2010 that preceded fundamental reforms.
Minouche Shafik, the president of the London School of Economics, and other vice-chancellors are among those pressing for a bipartisan commission, “rather than make it up on the hoof”, in the words of one.
