Over 52,000 graduates responded to one of Parliament's biggest ever inquiries into student finance reform.Rory Poulter12:26, 07 Jul 2026MPs say ministers have a "moral obligation" to axe a stealth freeze on student loan repayments that is silently draining the pockets of millions of graduates.‌In a scathing report, the Treasury Select Committee accused successive governments of piling debt onto young people in the hope they wouldn't notice. MPs from across all parties condemned the tactic as "politically convenient" but fundamentally unjust. At the centre of the row is the threshold at which Plan 2 graduates begin paying back their loans.‌When the scheme was introduced, ministers set the figure at £21,000 and pledged in 2010 that it would increase annually in line with wages from 2016 onwards. Instead, it has been frozen not once but three times by both the Conservatives and Labour.‌It was first frozen from 2016 to 2018, then again from 2021 to 2025, and now, following last year's Budget, for a further three years from April 2027, this time locking in the considerably higher figure of £29,385.Campaigners argue the effect is a hidden tax rise disguised as a technicality, dragging increasing numbers of low and middle earners into higher repayments they were never led to expect.‌Strikingly, the cross-party committee uncovered evidence amounting to mis-selling by officialdom — even though the Government has shrewdly ensured it can never be taken to court over it.Investigators highlighted government-produced YouTube videos and presentations that failed to warn borrowers that ministers could tear up the terms of their loans whenever it suited the Treasury. They also criticised slick marketing materials that likened monthly payments to the cost of a mobile phone contract or a cinema outing - a comparison deemed misleading for those on higher incomes.The Student Loans Company, meanwhile, faced accusations of concealing vital small print - namely that the rules can be altered retrospectively - deep within guidance documents, rather than highlighting it prominently as any mainstream lender would be required to do.‌Dame Meg Hillier, who chairs the committee, said MPs across the political spectrum have finally lost patience. She revealed that ministers privately acknowledge the system is broken but maintain that fixing it isn't a priority, noting that simply reversing the threshold freeze wouldn't drain significant Treasury resources.The report also disclosed that today's students could wind up bearing as much as 95 per cent of the cost of their own university education, with taxpayers covering a paltry 5 per cent.Article continues belowMPs are calling for this to be reversed towards a much fairer 50:50 split between graduates and the state over the long term - and are separately pushing for interest on loans to be tied to the lower CPI measure of inflation rather than the harsher RPI.The conclusions were informed by an extraordinary public response, with more than 52,000 people completing an online survey for the inquiry - one of the largest turnouts for any select committee investigation in history. Tom Allingham, a student finance expert at Save the Student, described the report as vindication for years of campaigning, branding the threshold freeze immoral and a betrayal of an entire generation of graduates.He pressed the Treasury to take additional action, arguing the u-turn should represent just the first step in a comprehensive reform of the student finance system.