Northern Ireland has missed out on £1.8 billion of public spending on higher education over thirteen years because of the way the Treasury counts student loans, according to new research published today by the higher education policy analysts Wonkhe.
The analysis uses the Office for National Statistics figures that record, for each UK nation, the portion of student lending that is never expected to be repaid – spending that has counted as public expenditure since a 2019 accounting change, and which is recorded as government spending in the year each loan is issued.
Between 2012–13 and 2024–25, the ONS recorded £82.9 billion of that spending for England and £996 million for Northern Ireland. Had England's spending per head been matched here, the figure would have been £2.8 billion – a difference of £1.8 billion, meaning the spending recorded for Northern Ireland ran at around 36 per cent of the English rate, the smallest per-resident share outside Scotland.
Per resident, the UK government's counted spending on student loan write-offs over the period comes to £1,437 in England and £519 in Northern Ireland. In 2024–25 alone, the gap was £183 million – set against a year in which Ulster University is cutting 450 jobs.
The research sets out how little of the money that does arrive can be used. In 2024–25, the Department for the Economy held a ring-fenced notional student loan subsidy budget of £226.9 million calculated off England's costs, and recorded a negative outturn of around £40 million, producing a reported variance of some £266 million. None of that variance could be redirected to universities, maintenance grants or any other Executive priority. The report also notes that the Maximum Student Number cap, described by departmental officials in March 2026 as essentially a cost-control measure, shrinks the borrower base on which Northern Ireland's Treasury comparison is run – so restricting places reduces the allowance as well as the opportunities.
Amy Smith, President of NUS-USI, said:
“Students in Northern Ireland are too often told that difficult funding choices are simply unavoidable. But this research raises important questions about how higher education funding is accounted for across the UK, and whether Northern Ireland is being fairly served by a system that can favour higher levels of student borrowing.
“Our analysis identifies a significant gap in the public spending attributed to Northern Ireland under these arrangements. At the same time, students here have faced years of inadequate maintenance support, our universities operate with capped places, and thousands of young people leave Northern Ireland each year to study elsewhere.
“We welcome the Economy Minister’s continued stance against increasing tuition fees, particularly at a time when others are calling for students to be asked to pay more. Protecting students from higher fees is the right approach, and the challenge now is ensuring Northern Ireland has a funding model that allows that position to be sustainable.
“The Economy Minister’s review of higher education funding is a real opportunity to look at the system as a whole, including university funding, student support and the way Treasury accounting interacts with the choices made here in Northern Ireland.
“We want to work constructively with the Minister and the Department to ensure that any future settlement is sustainable for our institutions but, crucially, fair for students. Higher student debt should not become the default solution simply because of how the UK funding system operates.
“The Treasury should provide greater transparency across all four nations about how student lending, expected write-offs and public spending are calculated. Northern Ireland should have a funding settlement that allows us to make choices based on what is right for students and our education system, rather than being pushed towards higher debt.”
