Fees and loans have made higher education a perk for the rich
Of those who said they were likely to study for a degree, around half said they were worried about the cost of higher education [Image: Getty].
The proportion of young people who think they are likely to go to university is at its lowest level in years, new figures suggest, with many citing cost as a primary concern.
According to a new report, the prospect of going on to higher education has become less desirable for many young people – news that closely follows separate figures published on Tuesday revealing a decline in student satisfaction levels overall.
Responding to the annual Sutton Trust poll – which questioned more than 2,600 11 to 16-year-olds in England and Wales – around one in seven (14 per cent) said they were unlikely to go on to higher education, compared with 11 per cent last year and eight per cent five years ago.
Of those who said they were likely to study for a degree, around half (51 per cent) said they were worried about the cost of higher education, up from 47 per cent last year.
The biggest money concern was tuition fees, followed by having to repay student loans for up to 30 years and the cost of living as a student.
The figures have fuelled concerns over a lack of social mobility within higher education, and come amid growing debate on the future of tuition fees, which rose above £9,000 to £9,250 in English universities for the first time this year.
Read on: Number of young people planning to go to university falls to lowest level in eight years
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
I have always maintained that the ultimate Tory goal is to price working class people out of higher education, and turn the clock back to the 1920s, when only the wealthy could afford to go to University. They want a dumbed-down working class population which suits their ultimate goal of keeping wealth and power firmly in the hands of Tories and their wealthy chums.
The thing is Tuition fees were introduced in September 1998 under the Labour government as a means of funding tuition to undergraduate and postgraduate certificate students at universities, with students being required to pay up to £1,000 a year for tuition. Didn’t they even consider what could happen after they were introduced?
That’s Tony Blair’s New Labour for you – a gang of neoliberals who thought sub-Tory policies were the way to power, and weren’t all that bothered about running a country responsibly.
These total DHs, want us all to end up in the gutter without money or health, beg them for the food scrapes just like many years ago, we let them start this evil by letting them take away our money and then very nice pay rise of around £15,000 per year and probably more. The only way to stop them is not to vote con,servative.