DfE blog: Everything you need to know about the Lifelong
Learning Bill
Posted by: Media Officer
The Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill has been
introduced in parliament, which will allow for the Government’s
Lifelong Loan Entitlement (LLE) to be rolled out from 2025. But
what does this mean for you? Here we explain:
What is the Lifelong Loan Entitlement?
The LLE is part of the Government’s reforms to post-18 education
and training, which aim to support more people to access
high-quality courses that meet the skills needs of employers, and
that will get them into good jobs.
From 2025, the LLE will offer people a loan worth £37,000 in
today’s tuition fees, which can be used flexibly over their
working lives to pay for short courses, modules or full courses,
whether at college or at university.
How will this support students?
This will create more flexibility for
people to decide when they want to study, throughout their
career, helping them to upskill and progress.
How does the Bill support the LLE?
The Bill will mean that from 2025, universities and colleges will
be required to use a new method for calculating the maximum level
of tuition fees they can charge for different courses. It will
make the pricing of modules and short courses proportionate, so
all students can access these courses at a fair price and
encouraging more people to study more flexible in a way that
works for them.
The Bill will:
- Introduce a new method to limit the fee a college or
university can charge for a course or module based on credits.
This means the amount a student can be charged is proportionate,
whether the student takes up a short course, a module or a
traditional full course.
- Enable the Secretary of State for Education to set maximum
chargeable credits per course year, so that students are not
being unfairly charged for their course.
- Introduce the concept of ‘course year’ as opposed to an
‘academic year’ to allow fee limits to apply with greater
precision according to when the course actually starts. This will
support more flexible patterns of study.
Following the introduction of the Bill, it will progress through
Parliament before being made into law.
