Higher education isn’t broken, so why the need to fix it?

Shabana Mahmood

More than 18 months into the current parliament, chaos and confusion continue to be the defining characteristics of the Tory-led government’s approach to higher education.

First came the trebling of undergraduate tuition fees to £9,000—a decision that has led to fewer students applying to university, particularly mature students and those from deprived backgrounds. At the time, the government side-stepped concerns that poorer students would be deterred from university by saying that they expected £9,000 fees to be the “exception and not the norm”.