A new Higher Education reform reintroduces Maintenance Grants for low-income Students

From the beginning of the 2025 academic year, tuition fees rose by 3.1% (to a new cap of students paying £9,535 per year). Philipson has now introduced a policy for maintenance loans to be increased for thousands of low-income students who are studying ‘priority’ courses.

According to Philipson, her specific policy development is a reintroduction of maintenance grants, depending on the location and low-income background. She believes this move will have important implications for educational equity and access. 

“I understand that some students may worry about the impact that the increase will have on their loan debt, so I want to reassure students already at university that when they start repaying their loan, they will not see higher monthly repayments as a result of these changes to fee and maintenance loans.’’ 

The non-repayable grants will be distributed to ‘eligible’ students enrolling in ‘‘priority courses’. As claimed by Bridget Phillipson, these programmes will be somewhat fundamental to boosting the economic and industrial growth.

This new initiative is supposed to be financed by a new levy on international student fees, thus representing a strategic shift, in Phillipson’s own words, to ‘fix the foundations’. According to Phillipson, this will help all students, despite their economic background, to achieve a ‘world-class education.’ 

Here, at the University of Leeds, one student stated that:

“coming from a low-income background, student bursaries, student loans and maintenance loans are not enough. With a maintenance grant, I would not have to worry about looking for a part-time job in between my lectures just to try and afford food and rent.’’ 

Maintenance grants were introduced by the previous Labour government in 2006, due to the sudden rise of tuition fees. However, they were then abolished in 2016 by the Conservative government.

The current Labour government released a whitepaper, earlier this year, titled ‘Restoring Control over the Immigration System’. This proposed a policy of introducing a levy that would put international students fees up by 6%. The Universities UK Chief Executive Vivienne Stern said:

‘‘A levy on international students will not help disadvantaged students, it will hinder them. As emerging already shows, it would reduce the number of places available for domestic students and mean universities have even less of their scant resources to invest into expanding access and supporting students.’’(ICEF Monitor, 2025). 

Here, at the University of Leeds, one international student commented:

‘‘Implementing this policy makes international students feel as though we are just sources of national income rather than respected students.’’ Students will still graduate with a significant amount of debt, especially if they are not eligible for the new grants. With another student suggesting that “even with grants, on a wider scale this will not be a major contribution to all university students as many of us will still be burdened with debt…there needs to be a more impartial approach that should prioritize every student, despite their eligibility status.”

The specific value and number of beneficiaries of these grants are expected to be within the forthcoming Autumn budget, which will take place on the 26th of November, with students and university institutions watching how the impact of this policy will take place.