ABSTRACT
Post Dearing nothing has changed. There will be no more public money (Mr Brown [the Chancellor] has said so). There will be fees, but no family will have to contribute more (Mr Blunkett [the Education Secretary] has said so). The only change is that the parental contribution will now pay for the means-tested fee instead of the means-tested contribution to maintenance. On the face of it, more money will be coming in because students will be borrowing more. But the Treasury takes the view that all student loans will count as public expenditure just as if they were grants. Thus loans bring in no extra money now. On the face of it, they will do so once loan repayments start to come in, but that process will take at least 20 years, and is, in any case, necessary for future expansion.
