Martin Lewis issues important 'clarification' over university tuition fees hike

Martin Lewis has issued a "clarification" over student loans rising after it emerged university tuition fees in England are to go up next autumn for the first time in eight years. Domestic undergraduate tuition fees in England have been capped at £9,250 since 2017 but have been eroded in value by high inflation, forcing universities to rely on uncapped tuition fees from international students to balance their books.

Mr Lewis, the BBC and ITV regular, spoke out on social media and warned: "Just to clarify, as many asking, the increase in max tuition fees and maintenance loans by RPIX (inflation) is for both new and continuing English students for the 2025/26 academic year."

University tuition fees in England are to go up next autumn for the first time in eight years, the government has said. The Conservatives have described this as a broken promised. Laura Trott, the new shadow education secretary, said: "With Keir Starmer elected to Labour leadership on a pledge to scrap tuition fees, no mention of the rise in the manifesto, and the education secretary saying in just July this year Labour had no plans to raise fees, students can be forgiven for feeling betrayed.

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"This is another broken Labour promise to add to the long list." But the University and College Union (UCU), which represents university staff, has criticised the tuition fees increase. Its general secretary, Jo Grady said: "Taking more money from debt ridden students and handing it to overpaid, underperforming vice-chancellors is ill-conceived and won’t come close to addressing the sector’s core issues.

"As Keir Starmer himself said last year, the current fees system doesn’t work for students and doesn’t work for universities. The model is broken; it has saddled students with decades of debt, turned universities from sites of learning into corporations obsessed with generating revenue, and continually degraded staff pay and working conditions.

"Labour accepts the issues facing higher education are systemic yet has only applied a sticking plaster. Its principles are vague and could be exploited by vice-chancellors, while higher fees mean even more graduates will fail to pay back their loans, ultimately costing the exchequer.

"The chancellor says ‘invest, invest, invest’: it is time to do that in higher education, especially if Labour is serious about delivering a decade of national renewal."