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What are Reform UK’s policies for higher education?

This is something which everyone working in higher education should be wondering given the current direction of travel. From their 2024 manifesto:

  • Scrap Interest on Student Loans: Extend loan capital repayment periods to 45 years. Restrict undergraduate numbers well below current levels, too many courses are not good enough and students are being ripped off. Enforce minimum entry standards
  • Cut Funding to Universities that Undermine Free Speech: The government’s Free Speech Act is toothless. Allowing political bias or cancel culture must face heavy financial penalties.
  • Universities Must Provide 2-Year Undergraduate Courses: The option of 2-year courses would reduce student debt and allow earlier entry into employment to help pay it off.

Also from this HEPI blog compilation:

  • Scrapping tuition fees for STEM degrees
  • “Barring international student dependents (presumably beyond current restrictions)”

So what would this mean in practice? It would mean a significant reduction in income for universities (removal of STEM tuition fees + big reduction in international students) alongside equally significant increases in costs (compulsory two year courses, presumably designed from scratch). The only way to square this circle would be “undergraduate numbers well below current levels” in a presumably restructured sector with fewer providers and fewer places. The free speech policy then comes to seem like a potential battering ram which could be used to open a culture war front in driving this restructuring.

I had a dream about this in which Matt Goodwin was appointed HE minister in the Reform government. I was thinking about this on a train journey and subsequently concluded this was an eerily accurate prediction for my unconscious to throw up.

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