What Budget 2026 means for students and SUs

John Healey’s first Budget promised households “breathing space” from an energy shock, but the help is built in ways that mostly pass students by – it runs through council tax bands, energy bills and benefits, the three routes students are least likely to be in, and there’s no mid-year top-up to maintenance and no new hardship money anywhere in the documents. We look at how far the maintenance loan has fallen behind inflation and Augar’s own benchmark, the double tax hit landing on private renters, why the Plan 2 threshold freeze is now worth £7.1bn to the Treasury and why the Chancellor won’t reverse it, and the changes to pensions, visas, capital budgets and Barnett money that will reshape university and SU budgets. The session closes with the costs SUs need to build into next year’s budget and the case to make locally and nationally now.