Please sign

[mudskipper]

The reason you were subsidised is that previous governments believed that the country needs an educated work force to complete with other developed nations, so making courses cheap to do would encourage more adults to do them.

However you could argue that what's the point of a pensioner being subsidised when they are not likely to use it in a job ever?*
Least with the unemployed and people of working age there is a chance they could use the skill in they learnt for a job.

*BTW I know the benefits of pensioners doing courses. Though it's not immediately apparent to people.

OU students will now be able to get student loans. Previously, there were means tested bursaries. For pensioners (many of whom were previously paying fees), that presumably means they can get a loan to cover their fees knowing they'll never be earning over the 21K threshold to pay it back.

[Disappointed]

compared to the £6K that a full time student will have to find with no income.

As far as I understand students don't have to pay any student fees until after they've graduated and started earning over a certain threshold.

Though as far as I understand, quite a few prospective students don't understand this and so decide against university since they think that they can't afford it. Probably for the best though, if they can't figure out how the student fees work, they might have problem with getting a degree...