The Lifelong Learning Entitlement Is Almost Here. Is Your Institution Ready?

The Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) is a new funding system being introduced in England that gives eligible learners access to a loan they can use across their lifetime to study at higher education level. Rather than only funding full degrees, the LLE also supports study through individual modules, making it easier for people to upskill, reskill or return to education at different stages of their careers.

For higher education providers, this opens the door to serving a much broader range of learners, while also introducing new ways of delivering and managing modular learning.

The Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) introduces a new way of funding higher education in England, giving learners the flexibility to study throughout their lives rather than committing to a full degree at the start of their career. From 2027, eligible learners will be able to access funding for individual modules, opening up new ways to upskill, reskill and build qualifications over time.

But the LLE isn’t happening in isolation. It’s arriving at a moment when learners already want something different from higher education. People are looking for shorter, more flexible study options that fit around work, family and the rest of life, rather than a single, long commitment made early on. For many, the goal isn’t just a qualification. It’s the specific knowledge or skill they need for where they are right now.

Continuing professional development, short courses, microcredentials and modular learning have moved from the edges of higher education to the centre of it. At a time when universities and further education providers across England are under growing financial pressure, finding new and more diverse sources of income is becoming increasingly important. The shift towards more flexible learning creates an opportunity to do exactly that: reaching new learner audiences, responding to employer demand and developing revenue streams beyond traditional degree recruitment. For institutions, the LLE provides a new funding route that can help make these opportunities more accessible and scalable.

It’s tempting to treat the LLE as a funding change to prepare for and not much else. But the institutions that get the most out of it are likely to be the ones that see it as something bigger.

Used well, the LLE is a chance to rethink how continuing and professional education fits into the wider institutional strategy. It can open the door to learners who would never have considered a full degree, strengthen partnerships with employers, and create clearer pathways between short courses, standalone modules and full qualifications.

It also changes how institutions might think about their educational offer as a whole. Instead of a list of separate courses, continuing education becomes a connected journey that a learner can build over years, picking up modules and credentials as their career and circumstances change.

Creating new modules is only the first step. The learner journey behind those modules matters just as much.

How will learners discover and apply for individual modules? Will they go through the same admissions process as full degree students? How will enrolment, funding, learner records and the VLE actually connect with each other? These questions come up quickly once institutions start planning seriously.

Then there are the practical realities. Multiple start dates throughout the year. Different support needs for adult and professional learners. Processes that need to flex without becoming more complicated for staff to run.

Institutions can’t simply break an existing degree into smaller pieces and expect the learner journey to work the same way. Flexible learning needs flexibility in how learners enrol, how they’re supported and how the administration behind it all runs.

Readiness doesn’t mean having every answer before a new provision launches. It means knowing where existing processes are likely to create friction, and deciding what needs to change before modular and continuing education starts to scale.

What that looks like depends on where you sit. Learners need a simple way to find and enrol in modules. Academic teams need to build flexible programmes without creating more administrative work. Marketing teams need to reach new learner audiences, while operational and IT teams need to manage enrolments, funding and learner records across different learner journeys.

For institutional leaders, the question is whether all of this can scale sustainably. Without the right operational foundations, more learners and modules can quickly mean more manual work, fragmented data and higher administrative costs, making the opportunity to grow continuing education and generate new revenue much harder to realise.

Join the Conversation

The LLE creates a new funding route and a valuable opportunity for institutions to reach new learner audiences and diversify revenue streams. But unlocking that opportunity requires more than funding alone. Institutions need the operational foundations to support modular learning at scale, from flexible enrolment and learner administration to stackable programmes and connected learner journeys.

These are exactly the challenges we’ll be exploring in Preparing for the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE): Practical Strategies for Building Institutional Readiness, our free panel discussion on 10 and 16 September. Our panelists will bring different perspectives to the conversation. Our Director of Strategic Partnerships will draw on more than 20 years of experience in the EdTech sector to explore the wider strategic landscape, while our Implementation Consultant will bring a practical perspective on the steps and challenges involved in building the operational capabilities institutions need to support modular enrolment, flexible learner pathways, employer-funded learning, stackable programmes and scalable learner administration.

But we also want this to be a conversation between peers. There’ll be space to hear how other institutions are approaching the LLE, what initiatives they already have underway, and what they’re learning as they prepare for what’s ahead.

Whether your institution is already building its LLE offering or just starting to explore what it means, we’d like you to be part of the conversation!