The financial concerns of students

Report England

20 June 2018

Funding Student experience

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Students need better information about tuition fees and student loans to help them decide whether to apply for a university course.

This research, conducted for Universities UK by the National Education Opportunities Network (NEON) and Portland Communications, finds that the available information on tuition fees and the student loan system in England is often inaccessible and unclear, and that students want more information on how universities spend tuition fee income.

The report's main findings include:

Prospective and undergraduate students need clearer and better-targeted financial advice on the full implications of taking out a student loan.
Prospective students are uncertain what universities spend tuition fee income on.
Living costs are a more significant concern for current undergraduate students than the level of tuition fees.
There was strong agreement that going to university generally helps graduates to earn more money in the longer term (64% of prospective students and 77% of undergraduate students).
More than half of students believed that they should make some contribution to the cost of their education.

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