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The system of higher education finance in England is currently under formal independent review. In this report, we have attempted to highlight some of the trade-offs that would be involved in reforming the current system of fees and loans applying to full-time undergraduate study.
All our analysis is based on simulations of the lifetime earnings of a single cohort of graduates who are projected to enter full-time undergraduate higher education in 2011 and to graduate in 2014 after three years of study, at the age of 22 in their first year after graduation. We assume all eligible students fully take up their entitlement to loans and fees.
Authors


Research Fellow University College London
Alissa is an IFS Research Fellow and a Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at the UCL Institute of Education.

Research Fellow University of Chicago
Greg is a Professor at the University of Chicago in the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics and a Research Fellow at the IFS.

Report details
- DOI
- 10.1920/co.ifs.2010.0115
- Publisher
- IFS
Suggested citation
Dearden, L et al. (2010). Future arrangements for funding higher education. London: IFS. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/future-arrangements-funding-higher-education (accessed: 13 July 2025).
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