11/06/2026
Student finance, once again - but where to start this time?
Maybe a couple of weeks ago with the BBC headline that “A third of people say uni degree not worth it, as student loan inquiry begins.”
Or Eleanor Harding in this Tuesday’s Daily Mail (not our usual reading material by-the-way), “Is University a Waste of Money?”
These are pejorative headlines that are none-the-less targeting something important - the change in conditions by the government regarding student loans and their repayment - but couching these articles by suggesting a degree is a “Waste of Money” is something different.
Higher Education has an important role to play in the future, both for individual students and for the country itself.
Through it, people are trained to an acknowledged and necessary level to invest in their future; people who will go into their chosen profession and are enabled to succeed. Not because they are offered huge salaries, but because it is necessary for that success.
They are allowed to follow a path that they find fascinating, have an ability in, and curiosity about.
As Christians that might be easier for us than for others.
We understand “calling”; that God given invocation on our future; the way we sense His gentle nudge towards a life of purpose.
Regents Theological College is, as many of you know, the Elim Pentecostal Churches national training centre. We exist principally to enable students to fulfil the calling God has placed on their lives.
But to do that we must allow them to find out what they are thinking, and why; self-discovery if you like, to “delight in the law of the Lord” (Psalm 1: 2), and to “do all things through Him” (Phil 4: 13) that strengthens them.
Theology is about self-discovery. To quote Professor Simon Oliver, it says “something about absolutely everything.”
Theology develops personal belief and societal values through the pursuit of truth, and by the way that truth shapes reality.
To lump theology, or any university degree, into the “it’s not worth it” campaign is facile and tunnel visioned.
Theology broadens skill. It is a degree that takes you into other fields because it is interdisciplinary.
It influences politics and law and culture and finance – and all the other ways through which we interact with everything around us.
Students of theology are “capable, well-rounded and eloquent.”
They have learnt to discern, to rationalise and to present their case. That’s an enviable quality that bridges all manner of employment opportunities.
But back to the money argument… we would suggest our fees, currently at £8,345 per year for undergraduates, and £9,030 for the entire postgraduate degree, are both worthwhile and affordable.
Those costs are part of fulfilling the calling on students’ lives whether they go into church work or the extensive range of other opportunities in the wider world.
It would be puerile to bandy around that other undergraduate degrees are £1,200 per year more expensive than ours (those that are currently capped by the government at £9,535 for a standard full-time course) because quality is not about financial gain.
Regents is not here to profit as some do according to Harding in the Mail, but to try, as best we can, to enable people of all ages to join with fellow believers to discover God through scripture at a deeper level than perhaps they can in everyday life.
Yes, it is academic – that’s the nature of higher education – but we work in “applied theology” meaning it is also practical and relevant to the things students may need to address in their future.
We are a learning, listening, spiritual community that moves forward together (discipleship), that listens to God and to each other (empathy), and who are spiritually committed to pray and worship (as the body of Christ).
But the books must balance, so fees inevitably creep up.
That is to cover real costs, not, as Harding suggests of some universities, to “over recruit in subjects that are cheap to make so that they can rake in tuition fees” and profit by “lowered academic standards.”
We are very aware of the challenges everyone faces in financing their degree, but we do everything we can to stop the threat of the debt argument hijacking the call of God on their lives.
If the momentum to address the way the current chancellor has changed the repayment policies and interest rates of student loans comes to the fore, we would welcome that, but we will not allow prospective students to be swayed out of their calling by polemic and headlines that distract them from the path that has already been laid for them.
