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Starmer: 50 per cent university target ¡®not right for our times¡¯

Prime minister scraps Tony Blair¡¯s long-held target to get half of young people into higher education, instead aiming for two-thirds accessing university or apprenticeships

Published on
September 30, 2025
Last updated
October 1, 2025
Jack Grove
Source: Labour Party

Keir Starmer has dropped Labour¡¯s long-held target of ensuring at least 50 per cent of young people attend university, stating: ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s right for our times.¡±

Announcing a new ambition for two-thirds of young people to go to university or start a ¡°gold standard apprenticeship¡± in his speech at the Labour Party conference, the prime minister explained that the symbolic target of having 50 per cent of young people attend university should be revisited.

¡°While you will never hear me denigrate the aspiration to go to university, I don¡¯t think the way we currently measure success in education ¨C that ambition to get 50 per cent of kids to uni ¨C I don¡¯t think that¡¯s right for our times,¡± Starmer told the event in Liverpool on 30 September.

¡°Because if you are a kid or a parent of a kid who chooses an apprenticeship, what does it say to you? Do we genuinely, as a country ¨C afford them the same respect?¡± he added.

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¡°Today, I can announce, we will scrap that target and we will replace it with a new ambition that two-thirds of our children should go either to university or take on a gold standard apprenticeship,¡± continued Starmer.

The criticism from Starmer, who holds an undergraduate law degree from the University of Leeds and a postgraduate degree from the University of Oxford, refers to the famous 1999 conference speech by Tony Blair, two years after coming into office, when the Labour Party prime minister set the target.

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By some measures, that target was achieved in 2019 when Department for Education (DfE) figures for 2017-18 showed that??before the age of 30. ?Some experts believe that figure is misleading because only 32 per cent of UK 18-year-olds (439,180 in total, a record high) were accepted onto higher education courses this summer, according to?.

The DfE¡¯s figure reflects those students who enter higher education of some kind ¨C not necessarily on an undergraduate degree course ¨C before the age of 30, including courses run by private providers, higher education courses taught by further education colleges and part-time courses. It also reflects enrolments onto higher education courses rather than degree completions, while some experts believe the DfE methodology??for 30-year-olds.

According to a House of Commons library report??in March, the higher education entry rate among UK 18-year-olds increased from 24.7 per cent in 2006 to 30.7 per cent in 2015 and peaked at 38.2 per cent in 2021.

Nonetheless, Starmer¡¯s speech represents a break from Labour¡¯s consensus view on higher education, with Blair¡¯s 1999 speech sometimes seen as a landmark moment in the expansion of UK higher education.

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Under what the Labour government has described as a programme of national renewal, Starmer announced the creation of 14 new ¡°technical excellence colleges¡± for 16- to 19-year-olds. Backed by ?800 million in investment from the existing Spending Review settlement, funding will support an additional 20,000?students, the prime minister said.

Starmer also set out plans for a single funding model for all level 4 to 6 courses, with further education and higher education courses brought under the regulation of the Office for Students.

Speaking at the conference shortly after the prime minister¡¯s announcement, skills minister Jacqui Smith said the new target will be an important part of the upcoming White Paper on skills, with an aim of increasing the proportion of young people educated to level 4 and above ¨C and ¡°move people up an escalator of skills¡±.

She said it recognises the significance of level 4 and 5 apprenticeships ¨C the ¡°missing middle¡± ¨C which the UK has fallen well behind other countries in delivering.

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¡°The only way that we will achieve that is by a new way in which we think about the coordination of our tertiary system, the way we think about the collaboration between institutions, the way we think about routes that people might take through education, and of course the contribution that FE and HE can play working together to fill in those gaps.

¡°I hope it¡¯s a demonstration of the seriousness with which not just me as the skills minister¡­but the PM, takes this area of work.¡±

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jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com

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Reader's comments (11)

#1 Submitted by t.r.... on September 30, 2025 - 9:45pm
Keir Starmer¡¯s pledge that two-thirds of young people will achieve higher-level skills by 25 is presented as expansion. Nearly ?800 million of extra funding for 16¨C19 education has been promised, supporting 20,000 more students. But the arithmetic shows this is not new money ¨C it is a rebalancing at the expense of universities. At present, around half of young people go to university (by the age of 25). To reach 66 per cent in a cost-neutral way, university participation would need to fall to about 34 per cent, with apprenticeships rising to 32 per cent. On a cohort of 700,000, that means roughly 112,000 fewer university entrants each year. The fiscal logic explains why. Each undergraduate carries a long-run public subsidy of about ?24,000 once loan write-offs are factored in. Two apprenticeships cost ?18,000¨C24,000 in training support but avoid maintenance loans and subsidy losses. Moving 16 percentage points of a cohort from university into apprenticeships saves around ?0.7 billion a year ¨C almost identical to the ¡°?800 million extra¡± just announced. This is less about expansion than substitution. The sweetener is for apprenticeships and further education. The bitter pill is fewer university places. The deeper shift is structural: Levels 4 and 5 are being elevated as valid end-points, largely delivered by FE and employers, not universities. Unless universities expand degree apprenticeships, they will lose numbers and influence. Labour will sell this as modernisation and fairness for ¡°working people.¡± But the balance sheet is flat. The two-thirds skills pledge is not an investment windfall. It is the start of a rebalancing in which universities are no longer the default destination.
#2 Submitted by ... on October 1, 2025 - 7:34am
This is very convincing. Though the underlying question remains is the 50% target sensible and appropriate? If one agrees, as many do, that this is too high and represents an over expansion which is problematic then a re-balancing is over due. That the re-balancing will save the taxpayer money, or at least not cost the tax payer any more is thus advantageous at this time. But I a not sure what the mechanism to effect this re-balncing will be. Offering more apprenticeships and boosting FE won't necesrily lead to their take up. If young people prefer the University option how are they to re-directed? Financial incentives?
#3 Submitted by simon@... on October 1, 2025 - 9:43am
As someone who has worked with FE for a number of years, the biggest problem the sector has faced forever is the fact that it is a place, "for other people's children." The Prime Minister is the first British politician to recognise how damaging that reality is for our economy. For example, the introduction of T Levels has created barely a ripple in political or journalistic circles, because journalists and politicians have no knowledge or understanding of their significance or that of wider FE. If A Levels, qualifications which supposedly share parity of esteem with T Levels, were being reorganised, there would be leaflets through every door and leaders in every broadsheet. If this rebalancing does come at the expense of universities and schools (which fight like tigers to keep sixteen year olds studying A Levels in their sixth forms rather than taking vocational courses at college) it will be greatly to the benefit of the economy as well as a healthy dose of what used to be called, "levelling up."
#4 Submitted by ... on October 1, 2025 - 10:43am
Well you see, this is the key question. Is this re-balancing a good or bad thing. Let's assume, as many do, that it is a good thing for UK society and economy. If so, then we should support it. Of course, it may not be very good for the beleagured University system which will lose out from fewer students if the policy delivers (and I am sceptical). I tink any opposition to policies of this kind have to be ethical and not just ad hoc deployments of argument to ptotect pur own position.
#5 Submitted by simon@... on October 1, 2025 - 10:54am
I think universities will undoubtedly lose out in the short term (and I've been a visiting lecturer too so have no axe to grind against them). The biggest problem is that schools and colleges and colleges and universities are forced to compete for students because that's how to chase the funding. Inevitably, as the system has been so financially skewed against FE (in excess of 30% funding cuts since 2010) it is that sector that has been squeezed, to the detriment of young people who would most benefit from taking courses there. For me, this is about redressing an imbalance that has constrained growth and damaged lives.
#6 Submitted by ... on October 1, 2025 - 7:47pm
I think you are exactly right. I have worked in the University sector all my career. We are always complaining, but the way the FE sector has been treated given its essential role is nothing short of criminal in my view. The HE sector has been a paradise in comparison. But we work in a red in tooth and claw profession, so we don't worry too much about FE. FE has always been the cinderalla of the adult education sector.
#7 Submitted by ... on October 1, 2025 - 8:48pm
Is this a good or bad decision? is it the right or wrong thing to do?
#8 Submitted by ... on October 2, 2025 - 10:25am
In 2022 we achieved 58% under the age of 25 at University. There certainly doesn¡¯t seem to be any positive correlation between the percentage of young people a country sends to university and its economic success: in the fast-growing US it is 43 per cent and for catastrophe ridden Greece it is 69 per cent. But there is certainly one clear signal from Sir Keir. This government wants the university sector to shrink far beyond it is already. Apart from University VCs and academics I don't hear anyone as yet speaking up in favour of Sir Tony's policy.
#9 Submitted by angray.... on October 2, 2025 - 2:43pm
Even Sir Tony is schtum on the issue.
#10 Submitted by ... on October 2, 2025 - 5:42pm
Yes never mind Gaza, Sir Tony should be here sorting out this mess!!
#11 Submitted by ... on October 2, 2025 - 6:04pm
Well we wanted a Labour government to act like a Labour government

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