Member

As it stands, too many young people are leaving university with what the Institute for Fiscal Studies has called “negative returns”: degrees that leave them with substantial debt but little prospect of a good job. The IFS estimates that around 30% of graduates earn so little that they never repay their loans, leaving hard-working taxpayers to cover nearly £8 billion a year. This is not a sustainable system. It is not fair to students or the taxpayer. The Government talk about value for money, but these regulations do nothing to address the underlying problem. As the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, said, this strategy lacks ambition. What exactly is the strategy? Too many young people are being funnelled into courses that do not lead to good outcomes, while high-quality apprenticeships and technical routes remain underresourced.