OfS says nearly three in 10 graduates do not advance to highly-skilled jobs or further study 15 months after graduation
Universities could be restricted in recruiting students for low-quality courses, according to new government plans.
The ministers will ask the independent regulator, the Office of Students (OfS), to limit the number of courses that do not have “good results”.
Education Minister Robert Halfon said imposing restrictions would encourage universities to improve the quality of courses.
Labor said the move would “raise new barriers to opportunity in areas with fewer graduate jobs.”
Advocacy group Universities UK said university was a great investment for the vast majority of students.
A spokeswoman for the organization warned that any measures must be “specific and proportionate, and not a sledgehammer to crack a nut.”
The government said courses that do not have “good results” for students would include those that have high dropout rates or have a low proportion of students seeking professional jobs. You’ll also look at potential earnings when deciding if a security offers enough value.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “The UK is home to some of the best universities in the world and studying for a degree can be immensely rewarding. But too many young people are sold a false dream and end up taking a shoddy course at a taxpayer expense that offers no prospect of a decent job at the end of it.
Nearly three in 10 graduates do not progress to highly-skilled jobs or continue studying 15 months after graduation, according to the OfS.
The OfS already has the power to investigate and penalize universities that offer degrees below minimum performance thresholds, but the new rules would require the regulator to cap the number of students for those courses.
The current thresholds for full-time students completing a first degree are for:
- 80% of students to continue their studies
- 75% of students to complete their course
- 60% of students continue their studies, professional work or other positive results, within 15 months of graduation.
Universities UK said the UK had the highest completion rates of any OECD country and overall satisfaction rates were high.
“However, it is right that the regulatory framework is there as a back-up to protect students’ interests in the very small proportion of instances where quality improvement is needed,” a spokeswoman said.
We may get more details of the government’s plans to regulate “scam courses” later on Monday.
But according to Education Minister Rob Halfon, any recruitment caps on courses will be entirely a matter for the regulator, the Student Office, rather than the government.
He suggested that the OfS would use “existing powers” to search for substandard courses.
“We cannot order the Student Office to do anything,” he told Radio 4’s Hoy programme.
You can currently initiate research where less than 75% of students complete a course, or where less than 60% continue their studies or professional work.
This announcement does not change these criteria.
And other aspects of the policy are unclear.
How many students can be denied a place at the university in the future?
If one in five students would have been better off without going to college (according to a study), is that the kind of numbers the government has in mind? will not say
What are these shoddy courses? Are some subjects more likely to have higher dropout rates than others?
The Department of Education cannot say which courses would be at risk of recruitment caps; that would be determined by the OfS.
But this raises another question: if some courses are of such poor quality, why not just scrap them altogether?
Speaking to Today, Education Minister Robert Halfon said that putting limits on low-performing degrees will mean those courses will “get better”.
“Students will be able to make informed decisions,” he said. “If a course has poor results, they can choose to do another course at the university, they can still decide to do that course, but they will have the recruitment limits.”
Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said the ad was “an attack on the aspirations of young people”.
But Halfon called that accusation “nonsense.”
“The Labor Party has been obsessed with quantity over quality and has been part of low standards in education,” he said.
Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman Munira Wilson said the prime minister was “out of ideas” and had “unearthed a policy that the Conservatives announced and then failed to announce twice.”
She said: “Universities don’t want this. It’s a cap on aspiration, making it difficult for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to continue studying.”
The idea originated from a 2018 review set out by then-Prime Minister Theresa May. The same review also suggested that more money needs to be pumped into education and that tuition fees need to be reduced, but this is not being implemented.
The new compromise comes ahead of three by-elections in seats held by the Conservatives on Thursday.
The government also announced it would reduce the maximum fees universities can charge for classroom-based foundation year courses, from £9,250 to £5,760. In 2021/22, 29,080 students were studying a foundation degree.
Foundation year courses are designed to help prepare students for degrees with specific knowledge or entry requirements, such as medicine and veterinary science.
However, the government said research suggested too many people were being encouraged to take a foundation year in some subjects such as business, where it was not required.
The University Alliance, which represents career and technical colleges, said cutting fees for foundation-year courses was “disappointingly regressive” and “makes them financially unviable to teach.”
Chief Executive Vanessa Wilson said: “Disadvantaged students and the ‘Covid generation’ will lose out if this provision is reduced or lost.”
He added that the government had chosen to “rebuke one of the few sectors of the UK that is genuinely world leading.”