Will the 2026 budget help you?

By Alice Benjamin, Second Year, Politics and International Relations

Last week, the anticipated Autumn Budget was released by John Healy, Chancellor of the Exchequer for Andy Burnham’s new government. Yet with the previous Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ freeze of loan repayment thresholds at £29,385 until April 2030 being the only explicit policy for students (for those who started university between the years 2012/13 to 2022/23); is this enough to help or are we being ignored?

With around 30,000 students at the University of Bristol, facing loan repayments in the real world is only a few years away for thousands. With cost of living and bills constantly increasing, having students needs being ‘one to come back to’ for Andy Burnham leaves many students questioning what the point is in caring about politics at all.

It's a situation that can't just be tossed aside to deal with at a later time, so why should students accept the government treating it as such?

So, if any, what parts of the budget will help?

Last Wednesday, Healey's largest announcement was that a payment of £100 would be given to households in council tax band A to D for household energy payments. This equates to about 80 per cent of houses across the UK. Paired with the extended cut to VAT on electricity bills which could save households £45 a year, the government is keen to give financial ‘breathing space’ to citizens when winter is already an expensive time, and global wars continue to have an impact on energy prices. However, with most students renting exempt from council tax, it falls to local authorities to give out the payment. Unfortunately, how these payments will be distributed, or if they will, to students has not been confirmed.

Houses of Parliament | Epigram / *Luke Buckland*

For students with a part-time job on the side, the national minimum wage is rising in April next year from £10.85 to £11.27 for 18 to 20 year olds and from £12.71 to £13.21 for those 21 and over. This 3.9 per cent increase aims to help those earning the least deal with the cost of living crisis more effectively. Their increased spending could also increase economic growth.

A new scheme introduced was called Your First Home which is aimed at first time buyers to help them get onto the property ladder. After graduating, people are eager to get a job, get a house and start their lives. Yet the current state of the property market makes this seem impossible to many. For one, Bristol has an average house price of £392,019. The scheme will allocate £4.7 billion over five years to around 70,000 first-time buyers. It will mean only a 2.5 per cent deposit on new-build home purchases, and access to a 20 per cent loan from the government to help pay off the mortgage which is interest free for the first five years. With 182 new-build properties currently available in Bristol, it could open new opportunities for students wanting to stay in the city after graduation.

Downing Street | Unsplash / *Jordan Madec*

International students also had some uncertainty settled. From January 2027, international graduates at UK universities will be able to stay in the UK on their current visa for a further two years. This will give graduates more options when planning for life after university and also benefit the UK job market as the scheme may attract more talented international students to our universities. Vivienne Stern, the chief executive of Universities UK, stated that:

‘it’s not just universities that benefit from international students but communities and business across the country.’

However, the final details of this policy are yet to be confirmed as this will only be possible for individuals from high-compliance universities where there are strong labour market outcomes. There has been no specification as to what universities will fall under this category or how many, therefore international students at the University of Bristol will be in the dark until the policy is finalised.

These policies all have potential to help students; but was there anything explicitly set out for us? The short answer is no. The previous chancellor's freeze on student loan repayments is staying in place meaning that the amount you’d have to earn before you start paying back your loan will stay at £29,385 until April 2030. At first glance this may seem beneficial but, as rises in the national living wage often cause a rise in wages, it is likely that graduates will start paying back their loan sooner than expected, leaving them with less disposable income. So were our interests ever really considered?

We posed these questions to our Instagram followers to find out what students thought about the budget and the results painted a clear picture. We discovered that 42 per cent of respondents’ biggest financial concerns were their rent and bills. Thus, the uncertainty around who the £100 energy payment will go to could increase pain for students. Student loan repayments were the second largest concern for 32 per cent of respondents; this signals that the continued freeze on repayments is just not enough in the eyes of students. 52 per cent of respondents were not even aware that student loan repayments had been left unchanged, but considering that 71 per cent of respondents shared the opinion that ‘student voices are not at all taken into account in political decisions,’ can they be blamed for not paying attention?

Considering that 71 per cent of respondents shared the opinion that ‘student voices are not at all taken into account in political decisions,’ can they be blamed for not paying attention?

The government's position on the matter is constrained as public sector net debt to GDP was 94.3 per cent in 2025, meaning that we have borrowed 94.3 per cent of what the UK produced. Healey was certainly under pressure to not drive that figure significantly higher, but is it right that students and graduates were one of the groups cut out from consideration? We are only three months into this Labour government so optimism should still be high for more impactful policies in the future. As the Prime Minister stated, ‘it’s one to come back to.’ We can only hope that he and the chancellor give students more thought in future political decision making.