The long-term cost of high student debt in the UK is not just for graduates | Heather Stewart

2026-02-01 - 12:06

Labour’s changes to the student loan system have turned frustration into full-blown fury, which its opponents are likely to reap at the ballot box Student loans: ‘My debt rose £20,000 to £77,000 even though I’m paying’ “It is not right that people who don’t go to university are having to bear all the cost for others to do so,” Rachel Reeves remarked this week, amid the increasingly angry row about student loans. But if something is “not right” here, it’s the complex and confusing loan system, and the debt burden borne by some recent graduates of English and Welsh universities. Somewhere along the way, that seems to have morphed into graduates meeting almost all of the cost themselves – a quiet abandonment of the idea that having an educated workforce might have wider social and economic benefits. Continue reading...