Lifelong Loan Entitlement critical to reskilling workforce, boosting growth and growing economy – OU

Posted on 7 March 2023 • University news

The Open University, the UK’s largest university, has today welcomed the Government’s proposals for the Lifelong Loan Entitlement in England. This important reform will enable more people to train, retrain and upskill throughout their working lives.

Over the last decade, there has been a damaging decline in undergraduate part-time study in England, particularly among those aged 21 and over. The LLE offers the prospect of reversing this decline by supporting participation in higher education over many years rather than just a few years straight after school or college.

The OU has also long called for removing the requirement that student loans are only available for study at a higher level than already achieved. The ending of this rule with introduction of the LLE from 2025 removes barriers that have reduced opportunities for many people to reskill or upskill by changing subject or occupation.

We also welcome the extension of maintenance loans to a wider range of higher education courses and not just degrees and will continue advocating for a further extension of maintenance support to students studying online.

Professor Tim Blackman, Vice-Chancellor of The Open University, said:

“The Lifelong Loan Entitlement is a new further and higher education offer that has the potential to enable people at any stage of their working lives to improve their knowledge and skills and drive productivity and growth.

At the OU, we provide a wide range of certificates, diplomas, higher technical qualifications, foundation degrees and honours degrees, as well as many short courses. We can also often count study at a college or another university towards one of our qualifications. The LLE will enable the flexibility to study more than one of these courses, at one or more institutions, over a lifetime”.

Key statistics in England:

• The number of adults aged 21 and over on first year undergraduate higher education courses has fallen by 41% since 2008/09. This equates to over 1.5 million ‘lost learners’ over this period.
• The number of part-time students on first year undergraduate higher education courses has fallen by 65% since 2008/09.
• The higher education participation rate of working-age adults aged 21 and over in England is now 31% lower than it is in the rest of the UK.