Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of levels of (a) graduate debt and (b) recent media reports on levels of children from low-income households choosing to study at university.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is committed to addressing the persistent disadvantage gap in access to higher education (HE) and we are encouraged by the fact that disadvantaged young people continue to choose this pathway.
We are introducing targeted, means-tested maintenance grants of up to £1,000 per year from the 2028/29 academic year. These will be paid on top of existing loan amounts, increasing the cash in students’ pockets without increasing their debt.
Repayments are based on income, not loan amount or interest. Borrowers earning below the earnings threshold make no repayments. Any outstanding loan, including interest, is cancelled at the end of the term, with no detriment to the borrower, and debt is never passed to family members or descendants.
HE providers intending to charge higher level tuition fees must have an Office for Students approved access and participation plan articulating how they will improve equality of opportunity for underrepresented groups, including students from low-income backgrounds.
We have gone further and asked Professor Kathryn Mitchell to lead an HE Access and Participation Task and Finish Group to consider how to tackle systemic barriers across the journey into HE for disadvantaged students.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that students from low-income households are encouraged to consider university education.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is committed to addressing the persistent disadvantage gap in access to higher education (HE) and we are encouraged by the fact that disadvantaged young people continue to choose this pathway.
We are introducing targeted, means-tested maintenance grants of up to £1,000 per year from the 2028/29 academic year. These will be paid on top of existing loan amounts, increasing the cash in students’ pockets without increasing their debt.
Repayments are based on income, not loan amount or interest. Borrowers earning below the earnings threshold make no repayments. Any outstanding loan, including interest, is cancelled at the end of the term, with no detriment to the borrower, and debt is never passed to family members or descendants.
HE providers intending to charge higher level tuition fees must have an Office for Students approved access and participation plan articulating how they will improve equality of opportunity for underrepresented groups, including students from low-income backgrounds.
We have gone further and asked Professor Kathryn Mitchell to lead an HE Access and Participation Task and Finish Group to consider how to tackle systemic barriers across the journey into HE for disadvantaged students.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what is her Department’s estimate of the (a) average level of student loan debt of Plan 2 students who started their course between 2012 and 2023 and (b) average level of student loan debt of Plan 2 students at the point that the freeze in repayment thresholds is planned to end in 2029-2030 for which the latest data is available.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The current mean average level of student loan balance of Plan 2 students who started their course between 2012 and 2023 to the nearest £100, as of 9 February, is £52,100 for England domiciled borrowers.
We do not hold a forecast for this average balance in 2029/30 on a consistent basis to the above figure provided by the Student Loans Company (SLC), as we forecast loan balances at the course level rather than borrower level, so cannot calculate the average balance by borrower.
The total level of student loan balances of Plan 2 students who started their course between 2012 and 2023 is £213 billion (to the nearest billion, as of 31 March 2025), for England and EU domiciled borrowers, as published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/student-loans-in-england-2024-to-2025/student-loans-in-england-financial-year-2024-25.
Our modelled forecast of estimated total loan balance at the end of 2029/30 is £249 billion (rounded to the nearest billion, estimate for 1 April 2030), as published here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/student-loan-forecasts-for-england/2024-25#explore-data-and-files.
The 2029/30 total loan balance figure is forecasted and not certain. More details on the methodology are here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/methodology/student-loan-forecasts-for-england.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the international student levy on university incomes.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The International Student Levy will require higher education (HE) providers to pay a flat fee of £925 per international student per year. An impact analysis of the levy published in November 2025 estimated the income losses to the HE sector from the levy in isolation to be £270 million in its first year. The full impact analysis is available here: https://consult.education.gov.uk/international-student-levy-unit/international-student-levy/supporting_documents/international-student-levy-impact-analysispdf.
HE providers are independent from government and as such are responsible for managing their own finances. The department has announced increases to tuition fee limits in line with forecast inflation for the 2025/26, 2026/27, and 2027/28 academic years. We will also legislate, when parliamentary time allows, to increase tuition fee caps automatically for future academic years.
Over the next five years, tuition fee limit uplifts could generate an additional £6 billion for HE providers, significantly outweighing the currently projected less than £1 billion cost of the levy. This approach ensures the sector benefits from compounding annual increases, delivering growing resources to support quality education and innovation.
Asked by: Jim Allister (Traditional Unionist Voice - North Antrim)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding her Department provides to the Royal Veterinary College; and whether her Department has oversight of the RVC’s funding of the Centre for Environmental Justice.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government provides funding to higher education (HE) providers in England on an annual basis through the Strategic Priorities Grant. This funding supports the teaching of expensive-to-deliver subjects such as science and engineering, access and participation of students from under-represented groups, and for world-leading specialist providers such as the Royal Veterinary College.
Through this funding, the Royal Veterinary College has been allocated £12.5 million for the current academic year, 2025/26. Providers are independent and autonomous from government and are responsible for determining how best to use their funding to support teaching and students. Oversight of HE providers in England is the responsibility of the Office for Students.
Asked by: David Reed (Conservative - Exmouth and Exeter East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the net present value impact on the public finances of capping total interest on Plan 2 student loans at 20 per cent of the original principal.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold analysis on the impact on the public finances of capping total interest on Plan 2 student loans at 20% of the original principal value of the loan.
Asked by: David Reed (Conservative - Exmouth and Exeter East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the value of interest repayments on Plan 2 student loans net of (a) the Government’s cost of financing student loan outlay, (b) expected write-offs and (c) administrative costs.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Repayments made against accrued interest are not separated from repayments made against the borrowed portion of the loan.
The department publishes an estimate of the subsidy portion of student loan outlay in the form of the Resource Accounting and Budgeting (RAB) charge. The RAB charge for Plan 2 outlay in England in 2024/25 was 32%.
The RAB charge is calculated as the present value of student loan outlay less expected future repayments, discounted by inflation plus the financial instrument discount rate. Expectations of interest, write offs and the government’s borrowing costs are factored into the fair value of student loans on issuance. In valuing the loan book at financial year end, estimated operational costs of servicing student loans are accounted for, in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards. Higher interest relative to inflation reduces the forecasted cost of the loan system due to increased future repayments.
Asked by: David Reed (Conservative - Exmouth and Exeter East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much and what proportion of the downward revaluation of the student loan book in the latest outturn reflects (a) revised graduate earnings and repayment assumptions and (b) changes in the discount rate used to value future repayments.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
As of 31 March 2025, the fair value of the student loan book was £157.9 billion, representing a £6.9 billion increase on the opening balance of £151.0 billion.
The fair value loss in the 2024/25 financial year was £8.6 billion. Of this, the change in the discount rate brought about a £280 million gain. The residual loss was £6.7 billion, which was impacted by changes in macroeconomic determinants such as the Office for Budget Responsibility’s earnings outlook, which was more pessimistic than in the prior year.
Asked by: David Reed (Conservative - Exmouth and Exeter East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of Plan 2 student loan borrowers have repaid in real terms more than (a) 100 per cent, (b) 120 per cent and (c) 150 per cent of the amount originally borrowed; and how many of those borrowers have (i) an outstanding balance and (ii) fully repaid their loans.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold data that allows us to provide the proportion of the amount originally borrowed that has been repaid in real terms.
The projected percentage of Plan 2 student borrowers in 2022 who are expected to fully repay their loan in real terms is available at:
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 10 February 2026 to Question 109541 on Jean Monnet Action: Finance, whether UK educational institutions will participate in the Jean Monnet Actions in relation to (a) supporting European Union studies, (b) the Jean Monnet Network on internal policy and (c) teacher training.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
I refer the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire to the answer of 26 March 2026 to Question 114071.