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Architect Of £9,000 Tuition Fees Calls For Faster Loan Repayments

Architect of £9,000 tuition fees calls for faster loan repayments

David Willetts says taxpayers footing too much of the bill for university students’ unpaid loans

The government should build universities in places such as Blackpool to help regenerate local economies, and boost higher education funding by making graduates repay loans more quickly, according to the minister who created England’s current student funding system.

David Willetts, the former universities minister who oversaw the switch to £9,000 student loans for tuition fees in 2012, said taxpayers were footing too much of the bill for unpaid loans.

His solution is for the government to lower the starting threshold for repaying student loans to earnings of £21,000, from the current rate of 27,295. That would save the government nearly £3bn a year, but graduates from England would see their tuition and maintenance loan repayments more than treble.

Under Lord Willetts’ proposals, a graduate earning £30,000 annually would see their repayments rise to £67 a month or £800 a year, compared with £20 a month or £243 a year now.

“It is in the interests of students that universities are well funded. But that should not come at the expense of taxpayers. It is wrong that forecast loan write-offs have risen from 28% [in 2012] to 53% today,” Willetts said. Using the proposed lower threshold, 44% of loans would be written off by the government.

It has been reported that ministers plan to lower the earnings threshold for repayments as part of the upcoming comprehensive spending review, and cuts to tuition fees and limits on some courses are also being considered.

The threshold cut was among the measures recommended by the Augar review of higher education in 2019, which also suggested cutting tuition fees to £7,500 and extending loan repayments from 30 to 40 years.

Jo Grady, the general secretary of the University and College Union, said that instead of burdening more students with debt, the focus should be on “proper” public funding. She said: “Lord Willetts, as the architect of £9k tuition fees, cannot claim to be concerned about the high levels of student debt while simultaneously proposing to hit lower-earning graduates with debt repayments.

“Lowering the repayment threshold to £21k, which is well below the average wage, will be a millstone around the neck of young graduates and risks putting students off from getting the education they need. It also fails to address the systemic problems with the university funding model which has led to rampant job insecurity and a precipitous decline in part-time and mature study.”

Writing in a paper for the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi), Willetts argued that demand for university degrees remained high, and he called for the government to keep expanding the higher education sector as a way of encouraging economic growth.

“Higher education has fallen out of favour. But it boosts earnings, wellbeing and the prospects of people and areas left behind,” Willetts said. “Conservatives are increasingly worried that graduates are leftwing but the party’s problem is with young people more widely. The best way to tackle this problem is by helping them fulfil their aspirations to own their home, get a decent job and – yes – go to university.”

Willetts argued that rather than attempt to reduce the numbers of school-leavers going into higher education, the government should continue to encourage campuses to appear across England.

“Many towns without one see gaining a higher education institution as one of the best ways of boosting their prospects. They attract young people to an area instead of losing them as they go to university elsewhere,” he said. “Blackpool council is supposed to have turned down a new university decades ago, so it went to Lancaster instead: now is the time for Blackpool to rethink that decision. Other towns such as Wigan and Wakefield are candidates,” Willetts writes.

Portsmouth is one of those cities that hugely benefits from its university, according to its vice-chancellor, Prof Graham Galbraith. The university has a decade-long strategic partnership with the local hospital trust, it sponsors the football club, is setting up a multi-academy trust and has plans to invest several hundred million in its city estate over the next few years.

“We are typical of universities in their cities up and down the UK,” said Galbraith. “We are the fourth largest employer in the city with a regional economic impact of £624m per annum, supporting nearly 9,500 jobs every year.

“These numbers might seem abstract but they translate to city centre shops, taxi drivers and businesses experiencing better sales when the students arrive at the start of term than at Christmas. You can imagine how much of a boost that this will be this year and the clear long-term impact our university has in our local community and economy.”

Also in the Hepi paper, Willetts included one unusual proposal: allowing universities to buy the student loans of their own graduates, giving the institutions an incentive for their graduates to earn more and continue making repayments.

“Universities should be able, if they wish, to take a stake in their own graduates’ debt so if the graduate earns more the university gets more back,” Willetts said. “The scheme needs to be designed so that universities do not have an incentive simply to select the students who will earn most.”

Willetts said such a scheme could enable universities to buy their own graduate debt at a discount to the market price, minus the university’s own write-off charge.

Responding to the paper, a Department for Education spokesperson said: “The student loan system is designed to ensure all those with the talent and desire to attend higher education are able to do so, whilst ensuring that the cost of higher education is fairly distributed between graduates and the taxpayer.

“We do not comment on speculation in the run-up to fiscal events.”

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TCN announces outages in Enugu, Abuja

The Transmission Company of Nigeria has announced that there would be electricity outages in parts of Enugu State and Abuja, respectively, due to maintenance of its Kubwa and New Haven Enugu 132/33 kilovolt substations.

The spokesperson of TCN disclosed this in a separate statement released on the agency’s X account on Tuesday.

According to TCN, the scheduled Enugu-New Haven maintenance would take effect from October 22, 2025, to Thursday, October 31, 2025, between 9:00am and 5:00pm daily.

Consequently, TCN stated that there would be disruption of bulk electricity supply to one 33-kilovolt feeder per day on a rotational basis during the period.

“TCN wishes to clarify that this is not a total system shutdown for Enugu State. To minimise disruption, the work has been carefully planned to affect only one 33 kV feeder per day on a rotational basis. Given that Enugu State is supplied by twenty-four (24) 33 kV feeders, this arrangement ensures that most parts of the state will continue to receive a power supply while the maintenance is ongoing.

“The exercise requires the temporary isolation of specific 33 kV feeders to ensure the safety of TCN technical crews and the protection of equipment under maintenance.

“Consequently, customers in areas served by these feeders will experience power interruption only on the day their specific feeder is isolated,” the statement reads.

In Abuja, the disruption, which is expected to take effect on 21st October 2025, would affect areas in Kubwa, including Army Resettlement, Papal Ground, Aso Garden, Nydren Supermarket, Back of AT4, Back of Mobil, Zenith Bank, FO1, Kubwa Extension, Chikakore Community, Dantata Estate, IITA Farms, Royal Champion Church, the Kubwa area and environs.

“The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) notifies the public of scheduled preventive maintenance at the Kubwa 132/33 kV Transmission Substation on October 21, 2025, from 11 am to 3 pm.

“The exercise will involve the replacement of a 33 kV circuit breaker with a new one and will require an interruption of bulk power supply to the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) from Kubwa Substation,” the statement reads.

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FG, States, LGs Share N2.103trn September 2025 Revenue – FAAC

A total sum of N2.103 trillion, being September 2025 Federation Account Revenue, has been shared to the Federal Government, States and the Local Government Councils.

The revenue was shared at the October 2025 Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting held in Abuja.

The N2.103 trillion total distributable revenue comprised distributable statutory revenue of N1.239 trillion, distributable Value Added Tax (VAT) revenue of N812.593 billion, Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL) revenue of N51.684 billion.

A communiqué issued by the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) indicated that total gross revenue of N3.054 trillion was available in the month of September 2025. Total deduction for cost of collection was N116.149 billion while total transfers, interventions, refunds and savings was N835.005 billion.

According to the communiqué, gross statutory revenue of N2.128 trillion was received for the month of September 2025. This was lower than the sum of N2.838 trillion received in the month of August 2025 by N710.134 billion.

Gross revenue of N872.630 billion was available from the Value Added Tax (VAT) in September 2025. This was higher than the N722.619 billion available in the month of August 2025 by N150.011 billion.

The communiqué stated that from the N2.103 trillion total distributable revenue, the Federal Government received a total sum of N711.314 billion and the State Governments received a total sum of N727.170 billion.

The Local government Council received N529.954 billion, while the sum of N134.956 billion (13% of mineral revenue) was shared to the benefiting State as derivation revenue.

On the N1.239 trillion distributable statutory revenue, the communiqué stated that the Federal Government received N581.672 billion and the State Governments received N295.032 billion.

The Local Government Councils received N227.457 billion and the sum of N134.956 billion (13% of mineral revenue) was shared to the benefiting States as derivation revenue.

From the N812.593 billion distributable Value Added Tax (VAT) revenue, the Federal Government received N121.889 billion, the State Governments received N406.297 billion and the Local Government Councils received N284.408 billion.

A total sum of N7.753 billion was received by the Federal Government from the N51.684 billion Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL), the State Governments received N25.842 billion and the Local Government Councils received N18.089 billion.

In September 2025, Import Duty, Value Added Tax (VAT) and Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL) increased significantly while Companies Income Tax (CIT) and CET Levies decreased considerably. Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) increased Marginally while Oil and Gas Royalty and Excise Duty recorded marginal decreases.

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FG finalises N4trn bond plan to clear GenCos’ debts

The Federal Government has announced that it has finalised a comprehensive plan to deploy N4 trillion in government-backed bonds to settle verified arrears owed to power generation companies (GenCos) and gas suppliers.

The Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Mrs Olu Verheijen, disclosed this in a statement on Tuesday.

She explained that the bonds form part of an initiative approved by President Bola Tinubu and the Federal Executive Council, designed to tackle long-standing structural challenges in Nigeria’s power sector and foster an environment conducive to substantial private sector investment.

She stated that the agreement was reached during a high-level meeting attended by the duo of the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun and the Minister of Power, Chief Bayo Adelabu.

The meeting focused on reviewing and finalising settlement modalities, with a consensus to engage in bilateral negotiations aimed at designing comprehensive settlement agreements that are sustainable within Nigeria’s fiscal realities and the financial constraints faced by GenCos.

Verheijen emphasised that the intervention represents the largest-scale debt resolution effort in more than a decade.

The move seeks to eliminate legacy debts that have stifled growth in the sector, strengthen the financial standing of utility companies, and enhance the reliability of power supply nationwide.

According to the statement, “This is a major step by the federal government towards restoring financial stability and investor confidence within Nigeria’s electricity market.”

The statement added that the initiative aligns with President Tinubu’s strategic vision of modernising the electricity infrastructure by improving grid systems, expanding distribution networks, and scaling embedded generation, with the aim of creating a favourable environment for sustainable growth and private investment.

This development follows the April 2025 warning by GenCos threatening to shut down the country’s power sector over N4 trillion in unpaid legacy debts.

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