How should undergraduate degrees be funded? A collection of essays

A final note on polling: given the extent this was mentioned in the free text boxes in the polling, it is worth highlighting the experiences of Muslim students in relation to accessing funding for higher education: As a Muslim British, so many of us cannot study for an undergraduate degree because of the interest we need to pay on the top of re-paying student loans and student maintenance. [...] First, no one much liked the accountability of the TEF and the sector, demonstrating its ability to miss the wood for the trees, had produced all manner of reasons to object to the methodology behind it. [...] The de-funding of higher education, which is the result of the current somewhat Corbyn-lite Conservative policy of semi-permanently freezing fees at £9,250 and forcing the sector either to endure the relentless real terms erosion of the unit of resource or to accept student number controls as the price of maintaining the quality of teaching. [...] One of the great advantages of our student finance system is that sharing the cost of higher education between the student and the Exchequer has enabled the Treasury to lift student number controls and allowed the widening of participation to drive both social mobility and productivity growth in the UK economy. [...] The insistence on funding study that bears a minimum of 30 to 40 stackable credits – at a cost to the learner of £2,310 to £3,080 – will be a barrier to the reskilling and upskilling the policy is intended to promote.