Students Priced Out of Education: RGSU Demands Urgent Government Action in 2025 Budget
The Russell Group Students’ Unions (RGSU), representing over 750,000 students across 24 leading universities, has launched its submission for the 2025 Budget. Our submission calls on the Government to address the unsustainable cost of living crisis that is pricing students out of higher education.
Our members are the UK’s future doctors, engineers, scientists, and educators who are essential to the nation's economic growth and the renewal of its public services. Yet, with 25% of students regularly missing meals and one in five considering dropping out due to financial hardship, this future is at risk. [1]
The 2025 Budget is a critical opportunity to fix this. We are calling on the Government to make key interventions to ensure no student is left behind.
Our Key Proposals for the 2025 Budget:
1. Increase and Reform Student Maintenance Support
The current maintenance loan system is broken. Support has failed to keep pace with real living costs, leaving students with a significant shortfall. We are asking the Government to:
Raise maintenance loans in England to match real living costs and inflation, with an annual adjustment.
Update household income thresholds, which have been frozen since 2008, meaning thousands of students from low and middle-income families no longer receive the support they need.
Introduce regional cost-of-living uplifts for high-cost areas outside of London, as rent in cities like Bristol now rivals the capital.
Reform postgraduate loans by increasing the total amount, establishing a separate maintenance loan, and raising the repayment threshold.
2. Improve Equity and Inclusion
The crisis disproportionately harms the most vulnerable students. We demand targeted support for:
Introduce dedicated cost-of-living grants, in addition to the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA), to cover the extra costs they face.
Increase and uprate allowances, expand childcare grant eligibility, and extend 30 hours of free childcare to student parents.
3. Reintroduce Maintenance Grants Fairly
While we welcome the reintroduction of maintenance grants, we strongly oppose funding them through a levy on international students. If the Government proceeds, this revenue must be transparently ringfenced, with all funds dedicated to low-income students and a portion set aside to support the international student community being levied.
4. Reform Student Loan Repayments and Freeze Tuition Fees
Students should not face a lifetime of debt. We call on the Government to:
Freeze the tuition fee cap at its current level for the duration of this Parliament.
Reform punitive repayment terms by raising the repayment threshold and, crucially, combining undergraduate and postgraduate loan repayments into a single, fair contribution rate to avoid crippling marginal tax burdens.
5. Support Healthcare and Medical Students
To strengthen the future NHS workforce, the Government must:
Increase and index NHS bursaries to inflation.
Ensure full reimbursement for all travel and accommodation costs students incur during mandatory clinical placements.
6. Expand Student Hardship and Travel Support
Establish a national hardship fund for students in financial crisis, distributed via universities with clear eligibility criteria.
Make travel more affordable by piloting a free bus pass for under-22s and introducing a railcard for all full-time students, regardless of age.
These proposals are pragmatic, evidence-based, and essential for upholding the Government's own missions of boosting opportunity and securing the future of the NHS.
Investing in students today is a direct investment in a skilled, healthy, and motivated workforce that will drive Britain’s long-term growth. We urge the Government to adopt these measures in the 2025 Budget.
[1] https://www.savethestudent.org/money/surveys/student-money-survey-2024-results.html