Student debt for the poorest students is hugely worrying

The level of debt for the poorest students is hugely worrying and should concern us all - something must be done immediately

A new report issued by the Institute For Fiscal Studies has offered some worrying analysis around social mobility in the UK and within universities. A survey conducted by Educating All, a programme focused on the barriers faced by working class young people in higher education, showed that 86.7% of state school educated students faced financial difficulty at university.

Replacing grants with loans means that students from low-income families are graduating with the highest debt levels, in excess of £57,000. The report also shows that the scrapping of the grant under David Cameron in 2015 disproportionately affects the poorest, while students from the richest 30% of households leave with lower average borrowings of £43,000.

Once I got the letter saying that we got into university, that’s when I thought that educational inequality ended. When I got into university, it became apparent within the first three weeks that this wasn’t the case. – Research participant