19 mar Since 1998, all student loans in England have been income-contingent
This research examines which students do and do not take out tuition fees loans and maintenance loans. It looks at which factors are the most important in determining the take-up of both types of loans including the role of the student's family income, family wealth, parental education, gender, ethnicity, and debt aversion.
Student loans in England: the context
Since the 1990s, England's higher education funding policies have been informed by the notion of cost sharing, whereby more of the costs of higher education shift from government and taxpayers to students and their families. The key cost-sharing policies introduced have been the establishment and subsequent increases in tuition fees supported by tuition fees loans and the replacement of maintenance grants with maintenance loans for low-income students.
Because of these policy changes, more students are reliant on larger loans to fund their studies. In , 397,000 tuition fees loans were taken out by full-time students worth an average of ?2,030. By , the number of loans for tuition fees had nearly tripled to 1.1 million, a take-up rate of 94%. The average amount borrowed was over four times higher at ?8,350.