As of September 2025, registration fees will increase from £ 9,250 to £ 9,535 a year. Do you ask how it will really affect you? We will explain everything …
Credit: Yuri A – Shuttersock
The government has just announced that the registration fees limit in England will increase for the first time in eight years.
This means that both current and new students will be charged with £ 285 more a year for their university education as of September 2025.
This has come in response to many universities that report that they are in danger of bankruptcy if something does not change. It has also been observed that the rates had been maintained with inflation since they increased to £ 9,000 per year in 2012, they would currently be closer to £ 12,000.
Should you worry about increasing the tuition rate?
This may sound like an alarming increase. But in Save the Student, we are eager to emphasize that, despite We are against any increase in the tuition feeThese changes may not have a great financial impact on most students.
These are the main reasons why:
Most students do not pay the tuition fees in advance
For many, registration rates are paid directly to university through student financing through a registration fee loan. This means that you will not have to pay the additional £ 285.
On the other hand, it will be added to your general debt of student loans, which will not begin to pay until you graduate and win the refund threshold for your student loan plan.
You may never end up paying additional rates
Their monthly payments of student loans are not affected by the size of their student debt. The only factor that affects this is how much you earn as a graduate.
For those who began the university as of August 1, 2023, it only reimburses 9% of any gain above £ 25,000. In addition, any remaining debt is cleaned after 40 years, regardless of how much you have to pay.
To put it in another way: the tuition fees could be £ 9 a year, £ 9,000 per year or £ 9 million a year, only reimbursed 9% of what you win on the reimbursement threshold.
Because of this, it is unlikely that a significant proportion of current students pay their loans before the 40 years are. For many students, additional loans for this increase in the tuition rate will only add to a debt that would never be fruitful in the first place.
What are the real problems faced by university students?
It is true that registration rates are a main capacitan, but the real problems faced by students are:
Can postpone future students
Research has shown that future students of the poorest origins also tend to be the most reluctant to debt, and as a direct result it is more likely that university will be discouraged.
This last increase could lead to more students, especially those with low -income history, questioning whether it is a viable financial option for them.
But in Save The Student, we would always encourage future students from all origins to separate the price of the university from what will really end up paying.
The above changes in student loans have had a worse impact
Although they did not capture the same attention as this tuition rate, there have been much more expensive changes in the finance of the students in recent years.
The student loan refund plan introduced for new English students in 2023 and after (plan 5), involved reduced the refund threshold, extending the reimbursement period and reducing the interest rate.
In the long term, this will make the university much more expensive for most students, and make a much larger difference than this increase in tuition fees.
Maintenance loans are not yet large enough
We have campaigned for a long time for the government to analyze the real problem that facing students at the university: the size of the maintenance loan aimed at helping to pay life costs.
Together with the announcement of the registration rate, the government has pledged to increase maintenance loans by 3.1% since September 2025. Although this is a welcome increase, it still does not go far enough.
Our latest National Money Survey for students showed that the gap between the average maintenance loan and the monthly costs of the students are a whopping £ 502 per month.
The amount was not only enough in the first place, but in recent years it is also far behind inflation. This has led students to fight to survive, with students by resorting to food banks, jumping meals and, in some cases, they even abandon the university completely.
Our money expert for resident students, Tom Allingham, says:
An increase in tuition rates simply rub salt in students and ignore the biggest problem they currently face: huge cuts of real terms to maintenance funds.
Although extra cash was needed to address successive freezing at rates, we expected this to be fulfilled by increasing government subsidy instead of adding to student debt. We are even more disappointed that they have decided to do this without taking significant measures on the maintenance financing of the students.
It was rumored that maintenance subsidies would be brought back to soften the psychological blow of an increase in rates. But instead, all we obtained was an increase of 3.1% in the maintenance loan, in line with inflation, but nowhere close enough to begin to erode the huge cuts of real sections that we have seen in financing in recent years.
Our National Student Money Survey 2025 found that loans now do not reach life costs at £ 502 every month, more than double the deficit of only four years ago. With that in mind, let’s repeat our call that any action on loans and maintenance subsidies must imply increasing general levels of financing to catch up with inflation.
Meanwhile, despite our dismay due to the increase in tuition fees, it is worth noting that this relatively modest elevation will make little difference in the general levels of student debt, and will have no impact on the amount that a graduate reimburses every month. This figure is only affected by its salary and does not vary according to how much it should.
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