‘The characteristic feature of Lifelong Learning is flexibility’ (Lifelong Education Commission, 2021, p.50) I was attending a regular institutional policy meeting recently. In discussing all things pertaining to OfS (we were very exercised by the potential impact of B3 changes around student outcomes metrics) a colleague mentioned the LLE (Lifelong Loan Entitlement, also known as the Lifelong Learning Entitlement). This was heralded a couple of years ago as a big thing, a game changer in policy which could mitigate some of the serious challenges facing both adult education (since 2004/5 mature learner numbers declined from 4 million to 2 million in FE) and part-time HE (since 2005 numbers dropped from 840K to 500K). The then Universities Minister (remember when we had one) Michelle Donelan stated in a speech to TASO in April 2021: “We need to develop a society where training, re-training and learning throughout your life is second nature. We all need to stop thinking about education as something you tick off and move on from and start thinking about it as something we can draw from throughout our lives… we need a real alternative to the traditional three-year degree, that remains out of grasp of too many. Because it is hard – if not impossible – to take three years out of full-time employment when you have a mortgage, children or caring responsibilities”. Well, ‘D’oh’ as some researchers and practitioners in part-time, flexible and adult learning might say. The espoused intention of LLE appears admirable, to give people the opportunity to train, retrain and upskill throughout their lives. It could, in theory, lead to a massive, transformation of post-18 study, stimulating modular education and offer greater parity between further and higher education, as well as enabling learners to space out their studies, transfer credits between institutions, and take up more part-time study. Shorter, standalone qualifications including Higher National Certificates (HNCs) or Higher Technical Qualifications (HTQs) could become more accessible and learners could collect a basket of qualifications (including at an equivalent level) relevant to their needs rather than being forced to work on linear progression to degree level study. Following consultation in 2021, short course trial pilots were due to be implemented in England in 2022. I reflect, in all the political and societal turmoil since the announcement of LLE, things have gone very quiet. The Lifelong Learning Commission chaired by former universities minister Chris Skidmore, issued a report in response (2021) suggesting a need for whole system reform: prioritising the part-time student premium; cutting the ELQ rules; introducing means-tested maintenance grants; unbundling qualifications in a credit-based system by switching to a per-module funded allocation amounting to six years of full-time study (720 credits rather than 480) and integrating a new Careers Service. However, we wait to see if (and when) LLE finally emerges, it is the silver bullet revolutionising lifelong learning, helping the ‘hardest-to-reach’ adult learners access HE? Critics have already identified the danger of adding more educational dead ends to a system that is already full of them, with a risk that funding at a modular (rather than at a qualification) level could create a significant administrative burden. Concerns have also been expressed about the need to provide robust information, advice and guidance to help learners build individual modules into meaningful qualifications particularly on professionally accredited programmes. However, too often missing from these policy debates is the student voice, the experiences of those part-time adult learners who have managed to overcome considerable obstacles and re- engage with education. Such learners desperately require more flexible systems and approaches. My research (Butcher, 2020) over the past seven years has identified four key barriers (building on Gorrard et al, 2006) which LLE needs to address: