If you were a leader of the opposition that wanted to drop your predecessor’s expensive-sounding “no tuition fees” pledge, you’d need a sweetener to neutralise at least a bit of the anger and disappointment that will head your way when you make the speech.
Both pre- and especially during a cost of living crisis, the sugar that Keir Starmer would want to announce would almost certainly be the totemic return of the maintenance grant. People don’t like debt, the abolition of the grant was something done by the government you’re trying to replace, and it just sort of sounds right.
Landing into Starmer’s lap is a run at doing just that. The University of the Arts London, led by Blair & Brown-era former minister turned vice chancellor James Purnell, has commissioned London Economics to produce new modelling on alternative approaches to fees and funding – and the result is two cost neutral options that illustrate potential ways forward for England’s beleaguered system of income-contingent tuition and maintenance loans.
