Why are university tuition fees increasing in 2025?

University tuition fees in England will rise up to £9,535 next year to ‘secure the future of higher education’, the Education Secretary has said.

The previous government raised the cap on university tuition fees in England to £9,000 per year in 2012, but it has been frozen at £9,250 for domestic undergraduate students since 2017.

But Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told the Commons this afternoon that tuition fees will rise to over £9,500 in October 2025 and £10,500 by 2029.

Ms Phillipson said the changes were needed to secure universities’ financial future.

She told MPs: ‘We will fix the foundations, we will secure the future of higher education so that students can benefit from a world-class education for generations to come.

‘That is why I am announcing today that in line with the forecast set out in the Budget last week, from April 2025 we will be increasing the maximum cap for tuition fees, in line with inflation, to £9,535, an increase of £285 per academic year.’

She added: ‘Increasing the fee cap has not been an easy decision, but I want to be crystal clear that this will not cost graduates more each month as they start to repay their loans.

‘Universities are responsible for managing their own finances and must act to remain sustainable. But members across this house will agree that it is no use keeping tuition fees down for future students if the universities are not there for them to attend.’

Which universities are in financial trouble?

Around 40% of UK universities are running unsustainable financial deficits, according to the Office for Students (OfS).

Around 66 universities have been identified as being in financial distress, according to the University and College Union (UCU).

A decline in international student enrollment has been blamed for one of the reasons some are facing financial trouble.

Some universities are responding to these challenges by cutting staff, closing courses, and merging courses. Others are implementing cost-cutting measures, such as voluntary redundancies.

Sir Keir Starmer previously pledged to abolish tuition fees when running to be Labour leader in 2020.

But he later walked back the statement last year after claiming the country was now in a ‘different financial situation,’ and said he was choosing to prioritise the NHS.

How has the opposition and other MPs reacted?

Responding to the announcement, new Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott said the government had ‘declared war’ on students, just as it had done to businesses, private sector workers and farmers.

She told the Commons: ‘We had a Budget last week which declared war on business, private-sector workers and farmers. It seems today that the Secretary of State (Bridget Phillipson) wants to add students to that list.

‘Not content with pushing up the cost of living for everyone with an inflationary Budget and pushing down wages with the national insurance increase, we are now in a situation whereby students will suffer from the first inflationary increase in a number of years at a time when students can least afford it.

‘And yet again, there was no sign of this in the Labour manifesto.’

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, now an independant MP, asked the Education Secretary if the rise in tuition fees will put off future students from going to university.

Corbyn, who pledged to scrap tuition fees in 2017 and 2019, asked Ms Phillipson: ‘Isn’t this going to drive more people away from university education rather than to it?’

She responded by saying the price hike was a ‘difficult but necessary’ decision which she didn’t want to do but was needed to ‘stabilise the sector’.

How has the education sector responded to the news?

Responding to the Education Secretary’s announcement of tuition fee rises, Iain Mansfield, Head of Education at Policy Exchange said: ‘It is hard to justify heaping additional debt upon young people before requiring corresponding reforms on teaching quality, high standards and contact hours, to ensure every student gets the high quality experience they deserve.

Professor Shitij Kapur, vice-chancellor of King’s College London (KCL), had previously suggested that universities in England needed between £12,000 and £13,000 per year in tuition fees to meet costs.

Home Office figures released last month showed there was a 16% drop in visa applications from overseas students – to whom universities can charge significantly higher tuition fees – between July and September.

Since January, international students in the UK have been banned from bringing dependents with them, apart from on some postgraduate research courses or courses with government-funded scholarships.

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