New proposals to ban student loans for students who fail maths and English GCSE

See PQs post #126 - the GCSE requirements won't apply to people aged 25 plus

See PQs post #126 - the GCSE requirements won't apply to people aged 25 plus

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/23/no-student-loan-fail-gcse-maths-english-bid-control-numbers/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-60491719

In an attempt to cracking down on the cost of universities to taxpayers and stopping so called 'low-quality' degrees, today government ministers announced some new proposals about higher education. This is because roughly eight in 10 graduates will never pay back their student loan, causing the debt to be written off after 30 years.

One of these ideas is to ban students who fail their maths and English GCSE's (getting lower than a 4) from applying for a student loan, or setting other minimum entry requirements. According to this article, around a third of students fail their maths and English GCSE each year.

They are also looking at reintroducing student number controls, which were in place before the cost of student loans rose to £9k a year, to stop universities being able to take as many students as they want. This could mean universities are fined for taking more than their allotted amount of students or universities are limited on the number of offers they can make each year, increasing the competitiveness.

What do you think of these new proposals? Remember, they are just proposals at this stage and they haven't been approved yet.

Does this worry you, or do you think this is the right thing to do? What alternatives would you suggest?

Let us know your thoughts below

Do you know when these proposals will be put into affect ? Also, do students who currently obtained a bachelors degree and want to pursue a masters degree but don’t hold GCSE Maths, will they be banned from taking out a student loan? I have a bachelors degree at 2.1 and want to do my masters but I don’t hold GCSE Maths

If there were any plans for this year, we would've heard by now, since student loans applications have started and are already being processed/have already been processed.

Cap the number of places and make it free. This ******** tinkering around the edges to what is an extremely **** system is just to grab headlines.

Mandate or at least heavily encourage sandwich degrees (with PAID placements) and ensure students have relevant work experience (or even a job offer) before graduating - especially for engineering/technology. ******** out thousands of CS grads with no experience is not the solution to the supposed recruitment crisis.

Schools/colleges should be encouraging (degree) apprenticeships first, not your bog-standard 3/4-year university path. Change the focus from UCAS/personal statements to preparing pupils for assessment centres and psychometric tests. The nature of recruitment is changing fast from AI assessed video interviews to gamified assessment and there is 0 meaningful support out there for people beyond some token gestures by careers advisors.

If the govt wants to improve the prospects of young people after studying, they need to look at what makes them employable. A piece of paper with a bit of Latin printed on it saying you have a degree does not make you employable. Productive work experience, learning on the job, gaining practical skills and putting into practice what you've learnt is what makes someone employable.

Thank you very much for that. Very helpful. I’ve submitted an application for student finance but I haven’t received a reply yet. I was just dreading that they would ask for my GCSE Maths in order to process my application. Perhaps it could take a couple of years before they done into effect.

It's not in place yet and the extended diploma will give you more than the equivalent of 2 A Levels at grade E so even if it was in force you are still likely to get student finance anyway.

Hi, what about if you are doing a masters degree and have a bachelors degree at 2.1 - would you still be entitled to student finance or would you still need GCSE maths ?

How to say "I think the only measure of a person is their ability to do algebra on a sheet of paper after years in a struggling education system and ignoring any neurodivergence or home issues or mental health challenges. I ignore all their other attributes, I think every career requires GCSE level maths. To be a painter, therapist or plumber, you 100% need to be able to differentiate an equation. I myself am very smart, so smart I can't spell." without saying it.