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In the Summer Budget of 2015, the Chancellor announced some further changes to higher education funding and student support. This briefing note assesses each of these reforms in turn. The authors start by providing a brief overview of the model underlying our estimates. Next they discuss the implications of the removal of maintenance grants for students and the government, followed by the likely implications of the proposed changes to the repayment threshold, fees and the discount rate, which will all be subject to public consultation. The note ends with some brief conclusions.
Authors

Research Fellow
Jack's main interests lie in human capital accumulation and discrete choice dynamic modelling.

Research Fellow University College London
Claire is a Research Fellow at IFS, working on the determinants and consequences of participation in childcare and education for parents and children.

Report details
- DOI
- 10.1920/BN.IFS.2015.00174
- ISBN
- 978-1-909463-96-7
- Publisher
- Institute for Fiscal Studies
Suggested citation
J, Britton and C, Crawford and L, Dearden. (2015). Analysis of the higher education funding reforms announced in Summer Budget 2015. London: Institute for Fiscal Studies. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/analysis-higher-education-funding-reforms-announced-summer-budget-2015 (accessed: 3 August 2026).
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