Taxpayers 'pay more for university students' now than before £9,000 fees
1 min read
Taxpayers are paying more to subsidise university students now than they were before fees were tripled to £9,000 a year, it has been claimed, in a major blow to Theresa May.
According to the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies, the taxpayer contribution towards students’ fees and living costs will average out at £24,000.
The figure shot up after Theresa May announced some £2.3bn in concessions for students including raising the earnings threshold at which they have to start paying back to £25,000 a year.
Fees were raised from £3,375 a year to £9,000 under David Cameron in 2012, while under Mrs May they have risen by another £250.
“The system is more expensive to the taxpayer now than it would have been if there had been no changes in 2011,” Jack Britton, a senior research economist at the IFS, told The Sunday Times.
“The per student taxpayer contribution under the system now created by Theresa May’s changes is higher than it would have been if we had never switched away from £3,000 fees.”
The paper adds that Universities minister Jo Johnson had been telling contacts in the academic world there would be no review of student finance – just hours before a review was announced.
“It’s a dog’s breakfast... They are completely split about what to do,” a source said.
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