Vice-Chancellor joins influential new panel established to look at current student funding system

The panel will review the system’s ability to deliver value for money for students, be financially sustainable for government and provide a long term stable funding environment to support high quality teaching and an outstanding learning experience.

It will consider a broad range of ideas and evidence and look in particular at how the cost of providing tuition fee and maintenance loans can be reduced, including new analysis published today by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). This estimates that, for each £1 loaned out by the government to cover the costs of tuition and maintenance, the long-run cost (the government ‘subsidy’) is 43.3p.

The panel will be inviting a range of organisations and individuals to contribute to the review, including the National Union of Students (NUS).

The panel, made up of university vice-chancellors and policy experts from outside the sector, will make recommendations on the student finance system in England up to, and immediately following the General Election in May 2015.

Professor Sir Christopher Snowden, President of Universities UK and chair of the new panel, said: “The student funding system must be accessible for all students who have the desire and ability to benefit from university, regardless of their financial background.

“In developing recommendations, the panel will seek to ensure that the system offers value for money for students and is financially sustainable for government. It must also provide a long term stable funding environment for universities that allows them to deliver high quality teaching, and the skilled graduates that the economy and society needs.

“To provide long-term stability, we will seek a broad political consensus for a sustainable system of funding.”


Members of the panel include:
• Professor Sir Christopher Snowden, Universities UK President and Vice-Chancellor, University of Surrey
• Professor Dame Glynis Breakwell, Chair of the Universities UK’s Funding Policy Network and Vice-Chancellor, University of Bath
• Professor Janet Beer, Vice-Chancellor, Oxford Brookes University
• Sir David Bell, Vice-Chancellor, University of Reading
• Will Hutton, Chair of the Independent Commission on Fees
• Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)
• Emran Mian, Director of the Social Market Foundation
• Professor David Latchman, Master of Birkbeck, University of London
• Professor Paul O’Prey, Vice-Chancellor, University of Roehampton
• Mike Rowley, UK Head of Education, KPMG
• Professor Sir Steve Smith, Vice-Chancellor, University of Exeter