Full time undergraduate who wants to go into law; he is the first person from his family to go to university and doesn't really know anyone who has done it
Law is a high-risk career choice and many of those who seek to practise are unsuccessful. This sense of risk is especially acute for people who have no prior family experience or social circle with experience of higher education. One of the key aspects of our funding system is that it would substantially limit those risks, because the total contribution is linked to what a person actually earns, not on earnings expectations in the labour market. This means that this person could study law without unduly worrying about the consequences of failure, whereas the present system with a higher cap would leave them with tuition fee debt of at least £15,000, before living expenses are even taken into account.
20 year old not been to university would like to do a part time degree
Our system would help young people in the workforce to study in higher education without leaving their paid employment, something which is made very difficult in the current system. Currently the system assumes young students will be full-time learners and as such there is a shortage of choices for people who don’t fit the usual pattern of study. We recognise that learning opportunities need to match the needs of part-time learners and that how courses are paid for are an important consideration for many people who haven't previously gone into higher education. Our system will help this person to study at a slow pace, building up their credits towards a degree. They will not be asked to pay anything up front for their course, as they would be under the current system. They can seek support from their employer, who can pay up to 120 of their credits in advance. After they have finished their course, their contributions will only rise if their earnings rise.
25 year old completed 2 years of university had to drop out for caring reasons/ illness
Every year, thousands of students leave higher education for very good reasons relating to life events – they are not ‘dropouts’, but the system often treats them very badly. Under the current system, this person would have around £7,000 of tuition fee debt, even though they cannot complete their degree. In addition, the lack of proper academic credit-based structures means that it may be very hard to pick up their studies again in a few years time, or to transfer to another university. Our system would help them because if their illness or caring responsibilities prevented them from working, they wouldn’t make contributions and nor would they have a debt building up that they have no hope of reducing. Furthermore, our system would stimulate the development of better credit-based systems in higher education, opening new options for this person when they are able to consider returning to study.
35- 40 year old who wants a management qualification
The recent decision by the Government to withdraw funding for equivalent and lower qualifications (ELQs) has made it much more expensive for people who have a degree to pursue undergraduate level additional qualifications (not ‘extra degrees’ as has been suggested). This person is a graduate in the workforce, who wants to up-skill with a short management qualification to gain promotion. The current system will ask them to pay up front, and at a rate much higher than other students. In our system, they can simply return to higher education to take the necessary modules for their short course, and when they complete them their contributions will rise to reflect the extra study they have done. No special payment rates would apply, and they wouldn’t have to save up to cover the initial cost.
A graduate who wants to have children
One of the key features of our system is that monthly contributions for most people would be more affordable than student loan repayments, because the cost is spread over a longer period. So when they reach the point where they want to have children, their resources will be less strained than under the current system. If this person wanted to leave work altogether, or reduce their working hours in such a way that they were earning less than £15,000 a year, their contributions would cease entirely – and unlike the current system, their debt would not continue to build. This means our system is far more family-friendly and socially responsible than the situation we have now.
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