The long-awaited response to Augar’s education and funding review after the 18th year, published in February, included 40-year payback periods and higher repayment terms. While these are unlikely to deter middle-class teens from aiming for a degree, those with less privileged backgrounds may stop, jeopardizing the supply of graduates in key areas such as teaching and nursing, the experts concluded. Analysis by the think tank of the Institute for Financial Studies (IFS) found that low- and middle-income graduates would be hit hardest, paying .000 30,000 more than current graduates, with a payback in 40 years. But the graduates with the highest income scales will pay .000 20,000 less as the progressive elements of the existing loan package are deducted. The IFS also found that the loan proposals under consideration could have a dramatic effect on who goes to university. Imposing a GCSE card requirement in English and math may have stopped 10% of recent undergraduate students from accessing loans – effectively barring most of them from entering campus. The IFS found that the majority would come from disadvantaged families or ethnic minorities, precisely the groups that successive governments have encouraged to consider higher education. Claire Crawford, of the College’s Education Institute in London, said the government and taxpayers would “massively reduce the amount of investment they provide” by getting more out of graduates. The percentage of graduates who repay their loans in full could increase from 25% to almost 75%, according to IFS. But whether the new repayment scheme will deter prospective students in England depends on their calculations as to whether they will be better off or not. “Those who would expect to continue and have a relatively high salary would think they would have even more incentive to go to university as a result, because their payouts are set to fall,” Crawford said. “If you are at the lower end of the spectrum, I guess it is a more marginal decision. “But it is not entirely obvious.” Crawford noted that many students chose courses and courses that were low-paying in terms of pay, suggesting that reasons other than income were behind their decision. “What we can conclude is that [existing] The price of the sticker did not seem to discourage people. “Therefore, whether they pay enough attention to this kind of underlying changes, which affect future payments, is not clear,” he said. The vice-chancellor of the University of Sheffield Hallam, Chris Hambants, said there were two views among his colleagues about the possible consequences. “The first view is that none of this is going to have any impact, that the cultural predisposition to go to university as a way to improve yourself is so ingrained that changes in lending will not significantly affect the demand for places. . “The view # 2 is that this cultural predisposition is much stronger among the middle classes than among the poorest households, and that while none of these interventions are likely to be decisive on their own, drip, drip, drip is likely to affect families in places like East Barnsley [reinforcing historically low rates of participation]. » Spouses believe ministers are less interested in expanding participation “because they believe the job is done” and are more concerned about costs, with current forecasts of a 26% increase in student numbers over the next decade. As a result, spouses say policymakers are like hotel guests in an unfamiliar shower, alternating between being too hot and too cold while nervously adjusting the taps. “What worries me about all this is that the deteriorating student loan terms, the minimum eligibility requirements and so on, are a whole series of interventions that have the effect of taking us back to a world of 1940 or 1950, where essentially “Universities are full of middle-class people and the poorest people do not come in.” The spouses said they could accept the case for minimum eligibility requirements, but could act as barriers for the most disadvantaged due to England’s extremely uneven school performance. “But I do not think the sector still has its mind.” While the government is improving its financial position, it has done little to help students whose maintenance loans are being reduced in real terms. Tuition funding for universities, which has stuck to .2 9,250 since 2016, has also been eroded by inflation, despite the government increasing teaching grants on some high-priority issues, such as health. Robin Mason, vice-chancellor of the University of Birmingham, said the widespread tuition freeze could lead to a rebalancing between more selective universities and the rest of the industry, reversing the trend of the last decade that has resulted in more selective percentage of students. “I think you can bet on the most selective universities that do not want to expand their undergraduate numbers,” Mason said. One part of government policy restricts supply to the top and another part says it does not want “lower value” courses. “And there will be a conflict between the two, but it is a conflict imposed by different policy areas.” A spokesman for the Russell Group of Universities said frozen tuition, rising costs and demand for places “will inevitably begin to affect the quality and choice of students, especially for the courses with the highest tuition costs”, such as nursing and the engineering. “In order to protect the pipeline of high-quality skills and jobs that will be vital to our economic recovery, we will urge the government to work with the industry to find a long-term, cost-effective approach to financing higher education that “continues to expand access to the university,” the spokesman said.
