Government resists calls to raise student loan income threshold

The government has resisted calls to raise the household income threshold that determines whether English students qualify for the maximum student maintenance loan.

Responding to a House of Lords report that recommended that the threshold be increased to allow more students to receive higher loans, ministers said their focus was on ensuring the student funding system is “financially sustainable”.

Concerns have been long been raised the maintaining the threshold at £25,000 – where it has been stuck for 18 years – is putting applicants from lower socio-economic backgrounds off higher education.

Only students whose families earn less than £25,000 qualify for the maximum amount, currently set at £10,830 for those living away from home outside of London in the coming academic year. Those whose families earn more receive less on a sliding scale with students from the highest earning families getting the minimum amount of £5,048.

The House of Lords’ Social Mobility Policy Committee report argued that the “single biggest practical impediment to those wishing to pursue a university education is the unavailability of the maximum maintenance loan to any student whose household income exceeds £25,000”.

But in its response to the report, published on 24 July, the government said that the threshold will not be changing.

It states that the current system targets “the highest levels of support at students with household incomes of £25,000 or less, who need it most”.  

The government “is committed to supporting the aspiration of every person”, it says, highlighting that it has committed to increasing maintenance loans in line with forecast inflation every academic year from 2026-27 onwards.

However, it adds: “We need to ensure that student funding system is financially sustainable. Around £20.7 billion of student loans administered by the Student Loans Company were issued in financial year 2024-25, of which £9.1 billion of maintenance loans were issued to undergraduate students.”

The National Union of Students has previously argued that the threshold for the maximum loan would stand at around £41,000 if it had risen with inflation. It has also argued that in 2008, when the threshold was first determined, the median annual wage was below the threshold for maximum support, standing at £24,908, but in 2025 the median salary stood at £39,039.

The threshold is now so low that someone working full-time on national minimum wage would almost earn enough to qualify.

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com