With almost all of Gaza’s universities destroyed or damaged by the war, hundreds of young Palestinians who have secured places at UK universities are now relying on international support to continue their education.

Many have been offered places but have no way of funding their studies. To help ensure they don’t miss out on the opportunity, a number of celebrities are joining forces to raise money through a charity auction.

Organised by the Phoenix Space charity, the Scholarships for Gaza auction features donations from more than 20 figures from television, sport and music, including Gary Lineker, Derry Girls stars Siobhán McSweeney and Nicola Coughlan, Brian Cox and Charlotte Church, who have donated personal items to be auctioned.

In 2025, despite the immense challenges, Phoenix Space and its partners supported the safe exit of 1,128 students from Gaza, who are now studying at universities across Britain.

The UK government continues to support Palestinian students leaving Gaza if they have secured a place at a UK university. However, to qualify, students must either have a full scholarship or be able to fund their tuition and living costs themselves.

The need for that support comes as Gaza’s higher education system has been left in ruins. UNESCO found that 95% of the territory’s higher education campuses had been either completely destroyed or damaged by November 2025.

Of the 200 campus buildings assessed, 195 had either been destroyed or were no longer capable of hosting students. At the same time, UNESCO found that 22 percent of the higher education workforce had been killed, injured or detained, while warning the true figures were likely to be higher because of the difficulties in collecting information from Gaza. The agency estimates it will cost around £280 million to rebuild the region’s higher education institutions.

 “Rebuilding higher education in Gaza is not just about restoring institutions. It is the key to restoring hope, opportunity, and future prosperity for an entire generation,” UNESCO said.

The post After Gaza’s universities were devastated, UK celebrities launch auction to help Palestinian students rebuild their futures appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

More than 120 MPs and peers have called for the government to conduct an urgent review of the system under which student loans are repaid.

The parliamentarians – which includes senior Labour, Tory, Lib Dem and Green figures – have written an open letter to the chancellor of the exchequer John Healey.

The letter read:  “We write to you as a cross-party group of 121 MPs and peers to highlight a growing concern across the country: the compounding financial pressure on recent graduates and early career professionals due to the current structure of student loan repayments.

“While higher education remains a vital pathway for personal advancement and national economic growth, successive governments’ adjustments to repayment thresholds – together with high interest and marginal tax rates – are placing an unsustainable burden on the next generation of workers.

“For many middle-income graduates, the combination of income tax, National Insurance and student loan repayments means they see less than half of any hard-earned pay rise.

“At a time when the cost of living remains a primary concern, this significantly diminishes disposable income, delays milestones such as first-time homeownership and family formation, and disincentivises career progression.”

Last year, the then chancellor Rachael Reeves decided to freeze the Plan 2 student loan repayment threshold between 2027 and 2030. This means more people will be brought into having to make repayments on their student loans as wages increase.

The Treasury select committee has previously said that that the government had a ‘moral obligation’ to reverse the thresholds freeze and to reduce the rate of interest on student loans.

The average graduate debt currently stands at around £50,000.

The signatories to the letter include the Lib Dem education spokesperson Munira Wilson, Tory shadow education secretary Laura Trott, Labour MP Stella Creasy, and the former Green Party leader Carla Denyer.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

Image credit: Airpix – Creative Commons

The post Over 120 MPs and peers call for an urgent review of the student loan repayment system appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Earlier this summer, nearly 160,000 applicants took the entrance exam for UNAM, Mexico's largest university. For the first time, they did it completely remotely, using a "lockdown" browser and AI-powered webcam proctoring software, over several weeks from late May through early June.

It was a disaster.

When exam results came in, they bore little resemblance to past results, especially at the top. Between 2021 and 2025, 3.5 percent of test takers scored 100 or more on the 120-question UNAM test. This year, 16.3 percent did so.

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