Universities that don’t take enough poorer students will have fees cut
Oxbridge and other top colleges are warned...
‘A long way from equality’
DOZENS of top universities including Oxford and Cambridge face having their tuition fees slashed unless they admit more disadvantaged students.
The Office for Students (OfS), which regulates higher education, is subjecting 31 institutions to ‘enhanced monitoring’ measures.
It means they have to report back regularly to the watchdog over the next few years, proving they are making improvements in widening access.
The OfS can impose financial sanctions on those failing to make enough progress and ultimately refuse to allow them to charge the maximum tuition fee of £9,250 a year. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson welcomed the OfS announcement and said he will be ‘watching carefully to see how these plans are delivered’.
But the move has renewed fears about ‘social engineering’ as institutions face greater pressure than ever to recruit state school students and those from poor backgrounds.
All universities must submit documents to the OfS explaining what they will do to boost admissions from disadvantaged pupils, tackle drop- out rates and gaps in degree achievement between different groups.
In order to charge the highest level of tuition fees, these ‘access and participation’ plans must be approved by the watchdog. If rejected, the OfS has the power to cap fees at a lower level. The watchdog has received 41 access plans for 2020/21 to 2024/25 from the most selective universities, including members of the elite Russell Group.
Three-quarters will now have ‘additional reporting requirements on commitments made in the plans, actions to address areas of weakness, requirements to change plans or interventions from the director for fair access and participation’. Oxford and Cambridge are among those required to report back on their progress towards widening access.
The OfS said Oxford recruited 15 times as many students from the most advantaged groups compared with the most disadvantaged in 2017/18. The institution plans to reduce this ratio to 8:1 by 2024/25. Cambridge University plans to reduce its ratio of advantaged to disadvantaged students from 14:1 in 2017/18 to just under 7:1 by 2024/25.
Chris Millward, director for fair access and participation at the OfS, said yesterday the country is ‘still a long way from equality of opportunity in our universities and gaps remain particularly wide at the most selective universities’.
The OfS has not published the full list of 31 institutions.
Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, warned against ‘social engineering’, saying: ‘We need to make sure the brightest and the best go to university, not the people who fit into some sort of sociological category of poverty.’
Professor Alan Smithers, of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said: ‘The strength of universities lies in attracting the most talented people who apply to them. They should be free to do it.’
Oxford University said: ‘We are fully committed to monitoring and evaluating our access initiatives and will be happy to share our findings with OfS.’
Cambridge revealed yesterday that 68 per cent of new undergraduates this year will be from the state sector. By 2035, it wants a third of its intake to be drawn from ‘under-represented and disadvantaged groups’.