UK government gets tough on uni franchises

The new condition of registration – due to kick in on March 31 – is designed to protect students studying under subcontractual arrangements, which have come under fire in the media following reports that bogus students are enrolling onto franchised university courses in the UK to claim student loans “with no intention of paying it back”.

Institutions that have or expect to have 100 or more students registered on subcontractual programs in a given academic year will be required to publish certain information on such programs. For example, they will have to reveal the proportion of tuition fees they retain from franchised programs, as well as giving a their “strategic rationale” for working with subcontractors on certain programs.

They will also have to show how they are identifying and addressing risks to students and the taxpayer from using subcontractors – meaning thhat they will need to keep a record of how they oversee such partnerships.

It comes as the Office for Students (OfS) moves ahead with plans to crack down on rogue university franchising arrangements, which it consulted on earlier this year.

Under subcontractual arrangements, universities or colleges – known as a lead provider – contracts another organisation, sometimes known as a delivery provider, to deliver all or part of a program on its behalf.

The OfS said that it was warning of the risks associated with “poor oversight” of some of these courses given the “rapid expansion” of these partnerships in recent years.

Our view remains that high quality and well-managed subcontractual partnerships can offer benefits to students
Philippa Pickford, OfS

Director of Regulation at the OfS, Philippa Pickford, highlighted that the organisation has been raising concerns over “poor practices” in some subcontractual arrangements for some time and vowed that the OfS would remain “vigilant” to the risks it said were associated with such partnerships.

“These new requirements – along with the Department for Education’s (DfE) upcoming requirement for delivery partners with at least 300 students to register with the OfS – will help safeguard students’ experience and outcomes, while assuring taxpayers that public funding is being used appropriately,” she said.

“Our view remains that high quality and well-managed subcontractual partnerships can offer benefits to students. It’s right that lead providers are fully responsible for the provision of education to students registered with them and we’re confident that universities that already do this well will find our requirements straightforward.”

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