Our work on education spending
Reports, comment pieces and more related to education spending
Reports, comment pieces and more related to education spending
2024/25 childcare funding rates offer real-terms protection for the early years budget, with a boost to the funding top-up for disadvantaged children
11 December 2024
Spending on special educational needs (SEND) is becoming unsustainable due to the rise in high needs. Reform to SEND funding and provision is needed.
10 December 2024
Spending on special educational needs (SEND) is becoming unsustainable due to the rise in high needs. Reform to SEND funding and provision is needed.
10 December 2024
We respond to government plans to increase the cap on tuition fees for England-domiciled undergraduate students.
4 November 2024
12 September 2024
2 September 2024
5 July 2024
25 June 2024
22 June 2024
19 June 2024
6 June 2024
6 June 2024
4 June 2024
1 June 2024
28 March 2024
This report examines the major challenges for education in Wales, including low outcomes across a range of measures and high levels of inequality.
21 March 2024
21 March 2024
1 March 2024
9 January 2024
11 December 2023
5 October 2023
4 October 2023
26 September 2023
26 September 2023
14 September 2023
4 September 2023
31 August 2023
9 August 2023
20 July 2023
11 July 2023
2 May 2023
21 April 2023
30 March 2023
8 March 2023
7 March 2023
21 February 2023
11 January 2023
11 January 2023
12 December 2022
12 December 2022
30 November 2022
11 November 2022
11 November 2022
24 October 2022
16 June 2022
We discuss how the cost of childcare has changed over time, and how it varies across the country and between different types of families.
20 May 2022
At the end of February, the government announced the most significant reform to the student loans system in England since at least 2012.
8 April 2022
11 March 2022
Christine Farquharson gave a talk on the landscape for early years spending and the challenges facing the sector going forward.
8 March 2022
24 February 2022
Using inflation as a cover, the government is cutting maintenance loans, increasing student loan repayments and lowering maximum tuition fees.
10 February 2022
28 January 2022
This report looks at annual education spending in the UK.
30 November 2021
In most of our analysis of education spending, we focus on spending in England to ensure comparability. In this observation, we expand our analysis to show the level and changes to school spending per pupil across the four nations of the UK.
22 October 2021
8 October 2021
In this observation, we set out the key facts on how England’s childcare system is structured, how it has changed over time, and some of the pressures it faces over the course of the coming Spending Review.
13 September 2021
In this note, we analyse how participation in and spending on 16–18 education have evolved over recent years.
18 August 2021
Over the last two decades, Sure Start Children’s Centres (and their predecessors, Sure Start Local Programmes) have been one of the most important pol
16 August 2021
At the last election, the Conservative Party manifesto committed to increasing teacher starting salaries in England to £30,000 per year by September 2022. However, to ease pressure on school budgets and the public finances, the government has now announced a freeze on teacher pay levels in England for September 2021, and pushed back starting salaries of £30,000 to September 2023.
23 July 2021
In this observation we look at the arguments to consider when assessing the merits of the large injection of education spending.
4 June 2021
This briefing note describes the range and level of COVID-related spending on education in England.
20 May 2021
In this briefing note, we assess the key policy announcements made in the DfE’s recent ‘Skills for Jobs’ White Paper around the funding of post-18 education.
22 April 2021
The Social Mobility Commission investigated the drivers of socio-economic differences in post-16 course choices and their likely social mobility consequences.
30 March 2021
By the time the pandemic is over, most children across the UK will have missed over half a year of normal, in-person schooling. This observation sets out the economic case for a massive national plan to address this crisis.
1 February 2021
21 January 2021
MPs will debate a number of petitions today relating to university tuition fees. These petitions are asking for all or part of tuition fees for the 2019/20 or 2020/21 academic year to be reimbursed. Between them, they have gathered nearly a million signatures.
16 November 2020
In our annual series of reports on education spending, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, we bring together data on education spending per student across the life cycle and provide analysis about the major issues facing different sectors.
3 November 2020
The closures of childcare providers to most families during the COVID-19 crisis have underlined the importance of access to childcare, both to support
4 September 2020
Many governments are considering expanding childcare subsidies to increase the labour force participation of parents (especially mothers) with young children.
30 March 2020
8 November 2019
Education spending is the second-largest element of public service spending in the UK behind health, representing about £91 billion in 2018–19 in today’s prices or about 4.2% of national income.
19 September 2019
Our first annual report on education spending in England provides measures of spending per student in the early years, schools, further education and higher education back to the early 1990s.
17 September 2018