WEEKEND READING: Value for money is rising – but what do students mean by value?

This blog was kindly authored by Paul Gratrick, Head of Operations, Student Experience at University of Liverpool.

The 2026 HEPI and Advance HE Student Academic Experience Survey contained welcome news. The proportion of students rating their course as good or very good value for money has risen from 37 per cent in 2025 to 45 per cent in 2026, its highest level for more than a decade. This is a positive result, but it needs careful interpretation. It does not necessarily mean students are endorsing the current funding system, nor that they are judging their degree mainly through future earnings. My recently completed longitudinal PhD research suggests students often recognise value through something more immediate, and whether university feels worthwhile while they are living it.

Value is experienced day by day

Between 2023-2025 I interviewed a group of undergraduate students in each year of their studies at three universities in the north west of England. Their definitions of value for money changed as their experience grew, but they remained rooted in everyday university life. Students talked about teaching quality, contact hours, useful feedback, accessible staff, reliable facilities, belonging and opportunities to participate. They also talked about rent, food, travel and the challenge of managing limited money.

These are not separate conversations. A course may offer excellent facilities and a rich range of activities, but those benefits have less value to a student who cannot afford to use them, is working during the available times or is on campus only for compulsory teaching. This helps explain the 2026 improvement. The survey identifies teaching quality as the leading reason for positive value judgements, alongside course content and facilities. Students appear to recognise value when they can see and experience it, and the concept of value for money becomes reified.

Debt matters, even when it is pushed aside

Debt was rarely absent from my participants’ thinking, but it was often kept at the ‘back of mind’. This was not the same as believing debt did not matter. It was a way of managing an obligation that students felt unable to change. One student described her debt as:

I don’t think about it as much, because if I thought about it then it’d be pretty terrifying. But at the same time … it’s become such a normal thing now to know that you’re going to be in debt for most of your life after university.

Another made a similar point:

I haven’t really thought about it. I don’t know if I’m being really naive about this by not thinking about it … but I don’t know what else to do because it’s just there now.

A student can therefore believe their degree is worthwhile without endorsing its price or the way it is funded. Improved value for money scores should not be read as evidence that maintenance support is adequate or that concern about student debt has disappeared.

Universities should welcome the 2026 result, but avoid chasing the score itself. The better question is what conditions helped more students recognise value this year and whether those conditions are shared equally. Institutions should examine value for money findings alongside data on paid work, commuting, financial hardship, belonging and access to teaching and support.

Does the value outweigh the debt?

National policy should also resist treating graduate earnings as the single test of value. Employment outcomes matter, but students also value purpose, confidence, knowledge, relationships and personal development. In the final year of my research, I asked participants directly whether the value they had received from university outweighed the debt they had accumulated. Their answers reveal why a positive judgement about value for money should not be confused with an endorsement of either tuition fees or the student finance system.

For some, the calculation depended on whether university had been necessary to reach their chosen career:

Yeah, for this course. I wouldn’t probably feel the same way for a different course where it wasn’t a necessity for me to go to university.

Others placed much greater weight on the wider experience:

When you incorporate the experience and memories and life I’ve lived by being at university … I’d say that it’s massively worth it and I wouldn’t have not gone based on the worry of the debt or the finances.

But even positive answers could be conditional. One participant linked the judgement directly to what happened next:

If I can get a good job. It’s unfortunate, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it without also accumulating all of this debt. So I guess I just have to crack on.

Another described how the structure of student loan repayments changed their perception of the debt itself:

I think I would still do it again. But I’m also worried that it’s not really worth the amount. If you owed that much money, like in real debt, I’d say it’s not worth it. But the fact that it’s only like a fee basically on top of your wage, it’s a bit different.

Perhaps the clearest distinction came from a participant who separated the value of the university experience from the value of what they had actually purchased:

The experience I’ve had at university definitely outweighs the debt. I don’t know if that necessarily means value for money because a lot of those things don’t cost me anything, like friendships and the experiences I’ve had. But when I actually look at it financially, I don’t know if what I’ve received for my money outweighs the debt.

That distinction should matter to policymakers. Asking whether higher education was ‘worth it’ is not quite the same as asking whether it represented good value for money. A student may treasure the friendships they made, the independence they gained and the opportunities their degree opened up, while still believing the price was too high or questioning what their tuition fee actually bought.

The 2026 rise in value for money perceptions is therefore encouraging, but it should prompt further questions rather than close the debate. Universities should concentrate on the conditions that allow students to experience value, such as good teaching, accessible support, opportunities to participate and course structures that recognise the financial pressures students now face. Government, meanwhile, should consider value alongside the adequacy of maintenance support and the consequences of requiring students to combine increasing amounts of paid work with full-time study.

Students can believe university changed their lives for the better without believing the system used to fund it is good value. Understanding that difference is essential if the improvement reported in 2026 is to become a sustained trend rather than simply a welcome movement in a survey measure.

A summary of my PhD research is available in an infographic format on my LinkedIn profile here