Does the Lifelong Loan Entitlement meet its own objectives?

The new Lifelong Loan Entitlement (LLE), due to start in 2025, is a major and positive improvement to how the student support system in England enables lifelong participation in higher education. This policy note considers the Government's response to the LLE consultation. Specifically, it considers whether the LLE will meet its own objectives. The LLE is part of the Government's reforms to post-18 education and training in England. It will offer students a loan equivalent to four years' worth of tuition fees (currently £37,000), which can be used flexibly over their working lives. This...  [+] Show more

The new Lifelong Loan Entitlement (LLE), due to start in 2025, is a major and positive improvement to how the student support system in England enables lifelong participation in higher education. This policy note considers the Government's response to the LLE consultation. Specifically, it considers whether the LLE will meet its own objectives. The LLE is part of the Government's reforms to post-18 education and training in England. It will offer students a loan equivalent to four years' worth of tuition fees (currently £37,000), which can be used flexibly over their working lives. This can be used to pay for short courses, modules or full courses at colleges or universities.

The LLE has five main objectives: (1) To enable greater parity of access between technical and academic courses; (2) To fund modules regardless of whether they are provided in colleges or universities; (3) To ensure that credit-bearing provision will support flexible, lifelong learning; (4) To transform the way learners access funding to enable learners to study, train, retrain or upskill at any stage in their lives; and (5) To encourage individuals to train, retrain and upskill in response to changes in labour markets and employment patterns.

Edited excerpts from publication.