Financing Higher Education in England: The Fiscal Implications of Reform

Undergraduate teaching in England is paid for mainly by tuition fees levied on students.  Students in turn mainly pay for their tuition fees and living costs by taking out income-contingent student loans, underwritten by the government.  New graduates typically leave university with student debt of around £50,000, though only around 30 per cent of graduates are expected to repay their loans in full. This paper assesses the fiscal implications of some recent proposals to reform the financing of higher education in England, including the recommendations of the 2019 Augar Review to amend the current system, a National Learning Entitlement, and more radical proposals to finance higher education out of general taxation or with an all-age graduate tax.

This paper was written in November 2019, and published on 15 August 2022

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