This paper presents an exploratory analysis of the funding mechanisms for higher education across sixteen countries which builds upon existing work on educational institutions, educational outcomes, and welfare regimes. We focus upon the current financing dilemma within the Irish higher education system, seeking potential solutions within an…

This document provides information on who is eligible for undergraduate, postgraduate and further education financial support from Student Finance England. It is designed to assist with the interpretation of The Education (Student Support) Regulations 2011 (as amended) (the Regulations) and is for Student Finance England students only.

Student borrowing is a major higher education public policy issue, with students in both England and the United States increasingly relying on loans to finance postsecondary education. Our paper examines prospective higher education students' attitudes towards debt in England and the United States. It exploits a unique dataset which allows us to…

Although postgraduate expansion swiftly followed the massification of undergraduate provision, with classed inequalities in access, postgraduate taught (PGT) education has rarely received the same level of scholarly attention as the critical mass of undergraduate research. To address this partial research lacuna, the paper traces 41 biographical…

The purpose of this study is to outline a new approach to the comparative analysis of student finance systems based on social rights, an approach widely applied in other areas of social policy. It focuses on rights codified in national legislation and financed by central governments, and the collection of indicators measuring formal eligibility…

Universities can help level up by boosting earnings, transforming towns and delivering vocational and technical education. They fulfil the aspirations of many young people. In this paper, David Willetts explores how to boost participation in higher education while cutting public spending. He argues it is reasonable to expect graduates to pay for…

This article critically examines how undergraduate students in a red brick university in the North of England have experienced the threefold rise in tuition fees since 2012, with particular attention on how they have begun to understand and negotiate the process of indebtedness. Drawing on a corpus of 118 interviews conducted with a group of 40…

As the price of college continues to rise and students find themselves deeper in debt, Americans are clamoring for ways to reduce their out-of-pocket college costs and debt. Some lawmakers have proposed removing the cost of college tuition as a solution. However, this brief argues three points: (1) U.S. policymakers should be wary of countries…

The purpose of the research was to discover the views of three groups of International students who were undertaking their Higher Education (HE) in a publicly-funded college, rather than a university setting. A comparative survey was undertaken by International students attending an American Community College, an Australian Technical and Further…

Students studying at universities in England have been defined as customers by the government since the introduction of student tuition fees. Although this approach has been rejected by educators, there is a lack of empirical evidence about the extent to which students express a consumer orientation and its effects on academic performance. These…

Using almost 60,000 responses to the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) / Advance HE "Student Academic Experience Survey" collected between 2015 and 2019, this report considers if the UK still has a single higher education sector -- from the perspective of students. Some important differences are revealed among locally-domiciled…

The 2012 rise in student fees, from £3375 to £9000 per year, made England one of the costliest places to attend university in the world. Drawing on evidence from higher attaining young people attending low-participation schools, this paper renews established types of student debt aversion and tolerance, with sensitivity towards whether they…

In this paper John Butcher challenges policymakers and the English higher education sector to act urgently to address the decline in part-time higher education. Although the drop in part-time student numbers has been well-reported in a series of quantitative studies, the problem persists. The dramatic reduction in part-time learners…

This article will examine Asian women's experiences of financial support in higher education. The article is based on 30 in-depth interviews with Asian women who were studying at a "new" (post-1992) university in the South East of England. Women identified themselves as Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. The findings reveal that women's religious…

Widening participation has opened higher education (HE) to diverse learners, but in doing so has created challenges negotiating situations of disadvantaged positioning compared with peers conforming more closely to the ideal "bachelor boy" student. As one of the most financially vulnerable groups of students, lone parents occupy a doubly…