Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment has been made of level of debt from tuition fees and living costs per student enrolled over the past 3 years.

The average loan amount (to the nearest £10) awarded across all loan products to students domiciled in England and EU in 2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25, the last three years of available data, can be found in table 2a of ‘Student support for higher education in England 2025, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/student-support-for-higher-education-in-england-2025.

Borrowers may have more than one loan within an academic year. The 2024/25 figures are provisional, as some payments are made later. The final figures for the 2024/25 academic year and corresponding provisional figures for 2025/26 academic year will be published on 26 November 2026.

A loan typically becomes liable to repay the April after the end of the course. The average total higher education borrower loan balance (to the nearest ten pounds) for borrowers entering repayment in the last three financial years is published in figure 10 of ‘Student Loans in England: Financial Year 2025-26’, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/student-loans-in-england-2025-to-2026/student-loans-in-england-financial-year-2025-26#average-income-contingent-loan-balances..