Universities to lose out on fees for failing to meet employment and drop-out targets

‘Gone will be the days where universities were recruiting students on to courses that lead to dropping out’

UNIVERSITIES will have to set targets to improve drop out rates and graduate employment or face having their tuition fees slashed.

Higher education institutions will also be required to boost the number of students they enroll on degree apprenticeships and technical courses.

The new measures will help to stop universities simply recruiting students on to degree courses that lead to “dropping out, frustration and unemployment”, the universities minister is to say today. Michelle Donelan will tell universities to rewrite their “access and participation plans” to include targets to increase the proportion of students studying degree apprenticeships and higher technical qualifications.

Vice-chancellors need to submit their plans to the university watchdog, the Office for Students (OFS), for signoff. If the OFS believes a plan is not sufficiently ambitious, it can reject it and send it back to the university to revisit.

Universities are banned from charging the highest fees – £9,250 per year – if their plans are not rubber-stamped. If a plan is not approved, the maximum fee they are allowed to charge is £6,165. Institutions which fail to deliver on their access and participation plans can also be investigated by the OFS and could face financial penalties.

Not every university will have to increase its intake of students on degree apprenticeships if they are fulfilling the other criteria.

For example, if a university does currently offer degree apprenticeships, it will not be expected suddenly to offer them to have their plans signed off.

Ms Donelan, minister for higher and further education, will say: “Gone will be the days where universities were recruiting students on to courses that lead to dropping out, frustration and unemployment.”