Lifelong Learning Entitlement should include means-tested grants
Lifelong Education Commission comment on the Government’s response to the #Augar Review:
The Lifelong Education Commission, hosted by ResPublica, welcomes the announcement of the Government’s response to the Augar Review. There is much to praise in the provisions that have been announced, many of which align with the LEC’s proposed amendments to the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill as well as our manifesto on the Levelling Up White Paper.
Yet future policy changes must recognise the important distinctions between mature learners and those who have recently left school. There are three areas where we believe the Government can do more to reinvigorate lifelong and part-time access to Higher Education for adult learners.
Level the playing field between academic and technical education
First, the LEC is pleased to see that the Government is committed to levelling the playing field between academic and technical education. We welcome the proposal to put student finance packages for Higher Technical Qualifications on a par with degrees from AY2023/24, including allowing learners studying HTQs part-time to access maintenance loans, as they can with degrees. We urge the Government to approve the decision to reduce the fees charged for university foundation years so that they cost no more than an equivalent course in a Further Education college.
This improved access to Higher Education must also go hand-in-hand with increased funding for FE providers to ensure that both remain viable paths for learners to gain intermediate and higher qualifications. This includes making available the funds for FE colleges to offer competitive salaries for technical and professional lecturers to stop the labour drain into schools, HE institutions, and the private sector.
Minimum eligibility requirements may cause unfair exclusion
Second, the LEC is concerned that the introduction of minimum eligibility requirements for access to learning finance may unfairly exclude those who would benefit the most from higher qualifications. In this light, we welcome the provisions for exemptions to these minimum eligibility requirements for students aged 25 and over, part-time level 6 students, learners who have achieved a level 4 and 5 qualification, and those who have completed an integrated foundation year or an Access to HE qualification.
The Government could go still further with these exemptions. Retraining and refreshing skills ‘on the job’ often relies on lower-level qualifications, so the exemption for part-time learners should be extended to those studying levels 2–5 as well. We agree with the argument that work-based learning and experience often leads to the development of skills and talent that supersede poor prior academic performance. Extending access to finance to all part-time students at all levels, including but not limited to mature students, would therefore be in line with the Government’s ambitions to encourage flexible and lifelong learning.
Lifelong Learning Entitlement should include means-tested grants
Third, the LEC welcomes the announcement of a consultation on the Lifelong Loan Entitlement. The government is right to point out that the current cohort of level 4 and 5 learners is, on average, mature, more likely to be from an ethnic minority background (18%), and from deprived neighbourhoods (24%). Learners with these characteristics are certainly more likely to be debt averse, and older adults from all backgrounds are in any case much more likely to have existing financial commitments through rent and mortgage payments, and costs from healthcare and family support.
We want to grow uptake across the board, while also considering how any changes may affect these more financially constrained learners. The LEC therefore strongly encourages the Government to consider converting the LLE into a Lifelong Learning Entitlement that includes means-tested grants for the most disadvantaged learners, including funds to cover the costs of maintenance for mature students.
As a Commissioner for the Lifelong Education Commission, I think it’s worth mentioning that there is no understanding of collective responsibility or assumed concord among us. As such, although I agree with the vast majority of the article above, my personal view of the Government’s response to Augar is slightly different on a couple of points.
Level the playing field between academic and technical education: Broadly speaking, I welcome the levelling of the playing field between HE and FE. However, I think it is wrong to level *down* the funding of foundation courses (run in HE institutions) to the same as access diplomas (run in FE institutions). Foundation courses are effectively run as Year 0 of a four-year degree programme. That integration serves to remove barriers to progression which is key to the success. Similarly key to the success of access diplomas is the fact that the barriers to entry are as low as possible. The two may share a goal – to allow ease of access to HE courses – but they are distinct in the way they work.
Sharing a goal also does not mean they cost the same to run. A foundation year generally costs the same to run as any other degree year (often more, in fact) and cutting the cost with mean that fewer universities offer this effective route to access.
I am not in a position to know much about the costs of access diplomas and I agree with the principle of a level playing field, but given the cost of a foundation course cannot be lowered without risk of reach and/or quality, it make more sense to level *up* the funding of access diplomas. Too often in education, we race to the bottom because cost is easier to measure than quality or outcomes.
Minimum eligibility requirements: I agree entirely that MERs are likely to cause unfair exclusion and that widespread exemptions are necessary. In addition to those stated above, I would add that we should exempt those with neurodiversity conditions such as dyslexia or dyscalculia who may struggle to achieve GCSE passes in English and or Maths, but who may be choosing a course of study where that is not important. We should exempt those who have had the misfortunate to be badly taught but have the capacity to succeed. In fact, we should exempt anyone whose individual circumstances comprise a justified set of reasons for not having achieved in the past but who can demonstrate that access to a student loan would provide the path to do so in the future.
There are so many exemptions that should be allowed that the idea of a MERs strikes me as either pointless (if you exempt everyone) or callous (if you don’t).
After all, why disallow someone from a student loan at 18 that they will be entitled to 7 years later when they are less likely to be able to take it up, less less to have time to pay it back and will have 7 fewer years of career to contribute to society and the exchequer? To me, that just looks like self-defeating ageism.
Instead, we should allow HE institutions to decide on a person by person case who has the capacity to succeed on their courses. In fact, since the HE & Research Act 2017, this is exactly what is enshrined in law. You won’t find they suddenly start admitting people to fail, because they haven’t been doing that up to now. UK university drop-out and failure rates are among the lowest in the world and rather than seeing arbitrary bars to exclude the students for whom HE promises to be most transformative, we should encourage and enable universities to work harder to ensure that transformation is facilitated and realised.
It should also be noted that it is grossly unfair that rich students who do not need a loan to study should have access to higher education, while most students who rely on a student loan should be denied it.