Government must start treating higher education like the investment in the future of our country it is

Universities are essential to creating a brighter future for the next generation.  They deliver world leading research, putting the UK at the forefront of new technologies, including those to help tackle climate change. They generate a total economic impact of £265bn a year and employ over 400,000 people. They are critical to upskilling the next generation to enter the working world and to growing the economy. Locally, they help communities to thrive and globally they educate hundreds of thousands of international students who go on to have powerful careers across the globe, expanding our soft power, influence and worldwide recognition.

Despite all this, proportionately, our government makes the smallest financial contribution to our universities of any country in the OECD. This point was salient at this week’s Treasury Select Committee, at which both our organisations argued for this to change. Until now, universities were, in part, able to recoup this lack of investment through international students’ tuition fees, but the more hostile immigration approach of the last two governments is hitting hard. 

The financial foundations of our world-leading universities are under threat. If there was one thing that everyone at the Select Committee could agree on, it was that. There needs to be a re-evaluation of who pays for higher education, moving towards a model that recognises its value to society. 

When the current iteration of tuition fees was first introduced in 2012, it was done with the understanding that the state would still contribute significantly to higher education. Estimates for this vary, but the intention was around a roughly half and half split between public and private – mainly tuition fee – funding. Every successive government has made slight changes to the student finance system, bit by bit shifting the weight of funding higher education away from the state and further onto the shoulder of students through tuition fees. Today, just 14 years later, the vast majority of this funding now comes from ‘private’ funding; the individual. 

Meanwhile, graduates are struggling to pay their rent, save for a house, and postponing starting families; and universities are closing campuses, laying off staff, and cutting courses to stay afloat.  

Not to mention the fact that students themselves are suffering. The government has consistently failed to meet pledges to raise maintenance loans to cover even the bare essentials. An NUS survey found that 69% of full-time undergraduates have to work alongside their studies, and 20% of those work over 20 hours a week. This leaves students exhausted, unsupported, and unable to achieve their best in their degrees. 

At the same time, universities are struggling. In the past three years, 44% have closed courses, 56% have removed module options and 13% have closed campuses. And in 2025, 15,000 jobs were cut.  Universities know they need to evolve, and to listen to the needs of students, businesses and local people, to meet their needs. That commitment to adapting is borne out by the difficult facts above. But at the same time, government must start treating higher education like the investment in the future of our country that it is; it is time for a conversation about the proper level of public funding of universities, to redress the balance between government contribution and students’ tuition fees. 

The current narrative around student funding assumes it is too much to ask the government to contribute more, directly, to higher education. Yet higher education continues to contribute hugely to society. There is no national renewal without universities and the graduates they produce. It is time for us to invest accordingly.