Written by Amy O’Donoghue
The Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has confirmed that tuition fees will rise with inflation for the next two years. Legislation to make it so that they will increase automatically every following year has also been announced. Current Home students at LSE will pay the increased rate from the 2026-2027 academic year onwards, with incoming students paying the higher rate for the entirety of their degree.
The government’s Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper was published on the 20th October, 2025. The paper announced that tuition fees will increase proportionally to inflation each year, likely according to the Retail Price Index minus mortgage payments (RPIx).
Tuition fees increased last year for the first time since 2017, when they were capped at £9,250. In 2024, they rose to £9,535 for the 2025/26 academic year. Philipson then promised further “major reform” to deal with the financial challenges plaguing higher education institutions, with the recent announcement delivering on this.
The new fee levels will only be permitted for universities that meet the quality threshold set by the Office for Students (OfS). The OfS rates universities based on student experiences and outcomes, using the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) as its metric. LSE was awarded an overall ‘Silver’ rating during the most recent evaluation in 2023, with student experience being rated ‘Silver’ and student outcomes rated ‘Gold.’ This means LSE will almost undoubtedly be subject to the incoming tuition fee rises.
The fee increase is intended to relieve universities of financial pressure following a decade of frozen fees and over 12,000 job cuts in the past year. Over 40% of UK universities anticipated a financial deficit this year. However, LSE is in a more fortunate financial position than most. They reported a surplus in their 2023/2024 financial statement, noting that 66% of their students are from overseas and pay international tuition fees.
Isabel Howe, LSESU Welfare and Liberation Officer, told The Beaver: “This fee rise will make LSE a more exclusive institution. I am worried for the future of our student body’s class diversity; these proposals will deter working-class people from LSE, making it even harder for working-class students to feel like they belong here. These proposals will also contribute to financial stress, which is growing as it is; we have seen this at the SU with increasing applications to our Hardship Fund.”
Maintenance loans will also increase with forecast inflation. Those claiming the maximum amount, who come from the lowest-income households, will see the biggest cash increases. The Education Secretary also recently announced that maintenance grants will be reintroduced by 2029, after their abolition in 2015. These would be given to “tens of thousands” of students from lower-income backgrounds and do not have to be paid back. However, these will only be given to students on “priority courses” selected by the Labour government, which have not yet been announced and may not be available at LSE.
LSESU Education Officer, Nooralhoda Tillaih, told The Beaver that there are “crucial and detrimental caveats” to the plans outlined in the government’s White Paper. She stated that the maintenance grants being allocated only to “priority courses” means they are unlikely to support LSE students and will turn poorer students away from the humanities. She added: “We at the LSESU support the return of maintenance grants, but not at the expense of university viability or student choice.”
In response, an LSE spokesperson stated: “LSE is committed to ensuring no students are put off from applying due to financial concerns, and that money does not prevent students from thriving while studying here. This is why we invest significant amounts of fee income into bursaries, pre-university outreach and support.”
