Offa asks universities to step up access efforts

7 Mar 11
The fair access regulator today set out the terms under which universities in England will be able to charge tuition fees of more than £6,000 from 2012/13.
By Lucy Phillips


8 March 2011

The fair access regulator today set out the terms under which universities in England will be able to charge tuition fees of more than £6,000 from 2012/13.

In a radical shake up of student finance, which will see tuition fees shifted from the public purse to individual graduates, universities will be able to charge up to £9,000 a year for degree courses.  Fees for home students are currently capped at just over £3,000 a year.

But all institutions that want to charge more than a new basic fee of £6,000 must have access agreements, aimed at widening student participation and improving retention, agreed by the Office for Fair Access.

Universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Exeter and Imperial College London have already signalled their intention to charge the maximum fees.

The guidance published today by Offa asks universities to: do more to reach out to potential students from under-represented groups; better target financial support such as bursaries and fee waivers at the most disadvantaged; take part in the government’s new National Scholarship Programme, aimed at paying some of the fees of those previously eligible for free school meals; and set their own access targets.

Offa director Martin Harris  said that, while progress had been made in widening access across the sector as a whole in recent years, access to the most selective universities had ‘remained virtually flat’.

‘We will have the highest expectations of institutions who have the furthest to go in achieving a representative student body and who want to charge fees towards the top end,’ he said.

Harris added that 2012/13 would be a ‘transitional year’ and that the guidance would be amended after that.

He said: ‘We are not entering uncharted territory and none of us can predict exactly how the new higher fees will affect student behaviour. There is a real risk that disadvantaged students in particular will start to feel they cannot afford to go to university. It is therefore vital that the sector gets across the message that tuition fees are not payable upfront and that students only start repaying fee and maintenance loans once they are earning more than £21,000.’

The University and College Union used the publication of the Offa guidance to reiterate its call for the government to reconsider a ‘shambolic’ and ‘untried’ system of student finance.

‘We are asking the brightest brains in this country to be guinea pigs for an unfair system that has not been properly thought through. The government must look again at the levels of funding it is taking out of the sector,’ said UCU general secretary Sally Hunt.

 

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