Next government faces hard choices on English universities, say experts

Manchester University students during freshers’ week. The IFS says tuition fees would be £12,000 if they had kept pace with inflation. Photograph: Mark Waugh/Alamy

The next government faces “unpalatable” choices between raising tuition fees, making direct grants or capping student numbers to rescue universities in England from their financial black hole, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned.

The thinktank said universities that relied on teaching UK students for the bulk of their income were most vulnerable, calculating that undergraduate tuition fees would now be £12,000 if they had kept pace with inflation, rather than the £9,250 rate frozen since 2016.