Central to the expansion of higher education is how it is funded and who pays. This debate predates HEPI’s launch 20 years ago and continues today. At stake are equal access and the sector’s financial sustainability and quality. These are driven by ideological, political and economic decisions about the amount and balance of financial contributions from individual students, graduates and their families, and from the state and taxpayers.
The trend overall, starting in the 1990s but intensifying in the last decade, has been to shift more of the costs of higher education away from the state onto the shoulders of individuals. This reflects other policy developments which relocate responsibility for welfare and wellbeing from the state to the individual through ‘financialisation’.1 It has been achieved in higher education through the introduction and expansion of tuition fees and student loans which call upon the ideological mantra of ‘who benefits, pays’. Students and graduates are deemed by policymakers as key beneficiaries of higher education because of the financial returns most reap from their higher education, and which render the repayment of tuition fees and maintenance loans affordable.
However, a distinctive feature of the UK’s student funding system is the differences between its four parts – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (NI) – in their policies, emphasis on public and private financial contributions and, consequently, in their mix of student financial support. The funding policy divergence, resulting from political devolution, has become more pronounced since HEPI’s creation in 2002 with varying implications for the four higher education systems, their students and graduates.
