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Higher Education

The arrangements that a modern-day applicant has to face are so convoluted, compared with those that we all had to deal with, that I am not sure that we can make that judgment. One of the smart little differences that the Government have made is that a student’s eligibility to borrow from the Student Loans Company is reduced by £1,500 if they qualify for the £2,700 maintenance grant—sometimes called a fee loan, depending on which publication we read. So, yes, they are getting a grant, but the student loan that they have to live on will have been reduced. It is a complicated scene that students face at the moment. The Minister will tell me if I am wrong about that. The Government would be foolish to rely on one year’s set of statistics for justification. One swallow does not make a summer, and one blip this year does not make for a statistical trend either. Over the past few years, as different financial arrangements have come into play, higher education statistics have been on a rollercoaster, and that will continue for the next few years as students under the old regime leave, and those who have to face the new regime join the system. It is too early for the Government or Labour Back Benchers to justify retrospectively the decision in 2004. They certainly cannot rely on one data set from one year of applications to imply that it will be okay to take the cap off fees in 2009. Such far-reaching policy conclusions cannot be made on the basis of one year’s worth of statistics.