Student debt doubles as top-up fees hit poorest

Student debt has doubled over the last six years and students from poorer families are suffering most, according to government research published yesterday.

The Guardian says that final year students averaged £7,918 debt at the end of their course and students from poor homes averaged £9,842, according to the survey of 3,700 undergraduates and trainee teachers at 88 universities and colleges in England and Wales.

Top-up fees were considered a key factor, and increasing numbers need help from their families. From this autumn students will be charged £3,000 a year, more than double what most pay now.

It was always going to be the case that the promised extra funding for universities from the introduction of tuition fees could only be delivered by rapidly hiking the cost to students from the initial level of £1,000 a year.

More public money could be invested in supporting students from poorer backgrounds and basing access to higher education more on academic ability if we weren't wasting so much cash by handing it to the EU.