Student Funding Across the United Kingdom: tuition and maintenance in the four nations and the impact of inflation

This briefing paper was written to support a discussion on the sustainability of student funding in the United Kingdom. This was for a meeting of the Higher Education Policy Development Group (HEPDG) at the British Academy, a committee that is made up of internal and external stakeholders. The paper looks at the funding arrangements for tuition and for maintenance in the four administrations of the UK, offering an overview of how each operates. It then goes on to explore the impact of inflation and consider the real terms value of the different funding models. Readers are invited to use this document to compare and contrast the different systems.