With the clutch of traditional higher education flashpoints accounted for – A level and SQA results days, and a clearing season reported to be particularly fraught in some quarters – the summer is drawing to a close, and a new academic year is upon us.
Eighteen year olds are set to attend universities in record numbers, up 5 per cent year on year and up 27 per cent since 2016. This is unquestionably a great thing. However, it masks a troublingly stubborn decline in mature students numbers.
In recent years, the number of these students – those aged 21 and over (or 25 and over for postgraduate study) – entering UK universities has been falling at an alarming rate, down by 26 per cent since 2016 according to UCAS. This decline may sound like a niche concern, but it carries big implications for the wider economy, for skills shortages, and for the prospects of people who want to reskill later in life.
As the government prepares to roll out the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE), there’s an urgent opportunity to rethink how the sector and society support adult learners and to ensure that lifelong education becomes a central pillar of our skills system.
The current picture
While the signs from clearing so far offer some encouragement, due perhaps to a sluggish economy, the data remains stark. Over the past decade or more, the number of mature students entering higher education has steadily declined, down 43 per cent since 2012.
The causes are multifaceted, but a shift began with the introduction of higher fees in 2012 and has persisted – it is well established that mature students tend to be more debt-averse, so this coupled with the rising cost of living and the upfront financial commitment of a degree will no doubt put off many.
Others may well be put off by a lack of flexibility. While real strides have been made in this area, particularly at modern universities, the structures of funding and regulation mean a lot of courses are still designed for school-leavers with the time and freedom to study full-time. Family responsibilities, limited employer support for training and the still-dominant perception that universities are designed for 18-year-olds will also play a role.
The pandemic briefly nudged some adults back into learning, but the overall trend remains downward. Without targeted action, these numbers are unlikely to recover on their own.
A price to pay
Why does this matter beyond the university sector? Because a thriving economy depends on people being able to learn, retrain, and adapt throughout their lives. Mature students often bring real-world experience into classrooms and tend to choose courses that fill urgent skills shortages – in health and social care, teaching, engineering, IT, and other high-demand sectors.
When these pathways dry up, industries suffer. Skills gaps are prevalent across key sectors and have been estimated by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation to cost the economy almost £40bn per year. Without a pipeline of retrained workers, employers struggle to fill gaps, productivity growth stalls, and regional economies miss opportunities to regenerate.
It’s also an issue of social mobility. For people whose school results closed off higher education the first time around, mature study offers a second chance to change careers, boost their earnings, and improve their families’ prospects. If that route disappears, inequality widens – and our economy pays the price.
A new hope?
The LLE, due to launch in 2026, aims to reshape post-18 education in England by enabling a move away from the traditional three- or four-year degree as the default model. Instead, individuals will be able to draw on a single pot of funding – equivalent to four years of study, or around £38,000 – and use it flexibly over their lifetimes, taking courses in smaller, more targeted chunks.
In principle, this modular approach could open the door for adults with work and family commitments, allowing them to pursue short courses when needed and return later for further study without losing access to funding. By making learning more flexible, affordable, and tied to labour market needs, the LLE is pitched as a way to lower barriers that currently deter many mature learners, particularly in an economy being reshaped by AI, automation, and the green transition.
Yet the promise of the scheme is far from guaranteed. The rollout is proving complex, with uncertainties over how funding will be administered, whether universities and colleges will be equipped to redesign courses in modular formats, and how easily learners will be able to navigate the system. Awareness is another challenge: adults with established careers and busy lives may not know the scheme exists, or may find the process of accessing funding too bureaucratic to be worth the effort. Employers, meanwhile, will need to support staff in using the entitlement – something that cannot be assumed.
There are also cultural and practical reasons to doubt whether large numbers of mature learners will take up the LLE. Adults may be reluctant to re-enter formal education, particularly if they are anxious about returning to study, lack confidence with digital learning, or doubt the value of small qualifications in the job market. Others may weigh the potential benefits against the costs – not only financial, but also in time and disruption to family or work responsibilities – and decide against it.
In short, while the LLE represents a bold attempt to modernise lifelong education, its success will depend on whether the system can overcome significant implementation hurdles and whether mature learners themselves see it as accessible, relevant, and worthwhile.
The role of modern universities
Universities are at the heart of this challenge. They too cannot rest on their laurels and must continue to consider how they design, market, and deliver their courses if they are to serve lifelong learners as effectively as they serve 18-year-olds fresh from colleges. Modern universities, which traditionally teach the majority of mature undergraduates, must continue to lead this agenda from the front.
Partnerships with local employers, another area in which modern universities lead, are key. By aligning courses with regional economic needs – for example, creating pathways into green technologies, health and care, or digital sectors – universities can help ensure that adults return to education with a clear line of sight to better jobs.
But a cultural shift is just as important. Universities need to be hubs for lifelong learning, not just finishing schools for young adults, and the government has significant work to do in getting the word out to the general public that the opportunity to study or re-train is there to be taken.
The decline in mature students is more than a higher education story. It’s a warning sign for our economy and for our ability to adapt to change. The LLE offers a chance to reverse the trend – but only if universities, employers, and policymakers work together to make lifelong learning a reality.
In a fast-changing world, education cannot stop at 21. The people of Britain need a system that allows people to keep learning, keep adapting, and keep contributing to the economy throughout their lives.
A great article, Rachel. One thing that’s always stopped me from completely buying into the concerns around decline in mature learners is just that the proportion of non-mature university students has increased so much over the last 30 years. It seems like a logical consequence of massification amongst young students, that we’d see subsequent declines in mature learners (there are just fewer people who now do not already have a university degree). I’d be very interested to see if anyone has done any sort of thorough evaluation around what we would expect to see in terms of declines in mature… Read more »