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The Green Paper
Fulfilling
our Potential: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice is a
consultation document by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills
(BIS) that sets out plans for a radical shake-up of English universities. One
of its many goals is to encourage ‘alternative providers’, aka private higher
education institutions (HEIs), into the system.
The rationale
behind this move has four elements:
Widening access: The need to widen access to higher
education is a central plank of the Green Paper. New providers are seen as part
of this: they “can offer programmes that
are attractive to hard-to-reach communities and to groups of people that are
not currently well-served.”
Equipping students for the world of work:
As I have
argued elsewhere, the Green Paper is rather disingenuous in creating the
impression that businesses are unhappy with the quality of university graduates.
Nevertheless, there is a shortage of
STEM graduates and there is scope for different approaches, one of which is the
‘Degree
Apprenticeship’, announced by BIS in March 2015, where the student “will be employed throughout and so have the
opportunity to develop employability skills that employers value.” One can
see that these apprenticeships would be appealing to those on a low income (and
to many others as well!) as the cost of course fees is shared between
government and employers.
Competition: For a conservative government,
competition is a key driver for improving the world. We are told that: “Widening the range of high quality higher
education providers stimulates competition and innovation, increases choice for
students, and can help to deliver better value for money.”
Fairness: Since students are now paying full fees, it
seems unfair to allow traditional universities to have a monopoly on the higher
education market. According to the Green Paper: “More
providers entered the sector in the last five years than at any time since the
last major expansion in 1992, but it’s still too difficult to set up a new
institution. We want to see a level playing field for all providers and a
faster route to becoming a university.”
I knew very
little about the “alternative providers” that BIS is so keen to encourage, so I
had a dig around on the internet. I found a HEFCE Register of Providers but
this contained only 12 institutions with degree-awarding powers, and it did not
have historical data. I also wondered about accuracy, as the register did not
include the New College of the
Humanities*. It did include an assortment of religious institutions (e.g.,
Assemblies of God Incorporated, Elim Foursquare Gospel Alliance, Salvation Army)
and those offering training in various therapies (British School of Osteopathy,
the College of Integrated Chinese Medicine), but of these only the British School
of Osteopathy was a recognised HEI with degree-awarding powers. An email to
HEFCE confirmed that the register was set up only in 2014. They gave me a
contact for the department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), but an
email to them requesting a source for the claim “More providers entered the sector in the last five years than at any
time since the last major expansion in 1992” has so far not elicited a
response.
Further digging
around established that in January 2015, plans were announced to form an Independent
Universities Group (IUG) representing private institutions with degree-awarding
powers or university title. The goal was to establish a
kind of “Russell Group” of independent providers, who could be clearly
distinguished from what the Times Higher Education called “dodgy for-profit colleges”.
However, discussions between these institutions seem to have been derailed by
the election and the IUG
has not so far been formed.
I looked at the
courses on offer at this “high-quality” end of the sector, to see how far they
meet the four goals outlined above.
- The website of Ashridge Business School takes you to Hult International Business School, a global organisation with campuses around the world. They offer one undergraduate degree, a Bachelor of Business Administration, for a tuition fee of £23,580 per annum.
- BPP University (owned by the US Apollo Group) offers undergraduate courses in Accountancy and Finance, Law, Business and Management, and Health. “Health” may be something of a misnomer, given that it includes an “Integrated Undergraduate Masters in Chiropractic (MChiro)” (see this article). Fees for undergraduate degrees are £6K per annum for a 3-year course and £9K per annum for a 2-year course.
- The University of Buckingham was founded in 1973 and is the private university in the UK operating under a Royal Charter. It runs a range of degrees in arts and humanities, and offer a more intensive 2-year degree curriculum, at a fee of just over £9K per annum. In 2015, they expanded to offer a medical degree at a cost of just over £35K per annum for a 4.5 year course.
- The College of Estate Management offers part-time online courses in areas such as building surveying and estate management, at a cost of around £5.5K per annum.
- The University of Law (owned by Montagu Private Equity), as its name suggests, offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate law courses, and charges £9K per annum for a 2-year undergraduate LLB or £6K per annum for a 3-year degree.
- Regent’s University London offers undergraduate degrees in a wide range of subjects in arts and humanities, charging just under £16K per annum.
- RDI (a subsidiary of US firm Capella Education Company) partners with various UK Universities to offer distance learning courses. You can, for instance, take a Psychology degree at Anglia Ruskin University through RDI. The nature of the course gives flexibility in duration of study, with a total cost of just over £12K.
- Richmond, the American International University in London, offers a range of undergraduate courses, mostly in business and finance, with an annual fee of £9K.
My overall impression
is that these institutions introduce some innovative practices that could
help achieve the goal of widening access. In particular, we see places offering
shorter, more intensive degrees, part-time degrees, and distance learning. Some
of them are competing with public universities in terms of cost, because there
is currently a lower ceiling on allowable fees, but many of them offer a
restricted range of courses. There is little evidence that these alternative
providers will do a better job than other HEIs in catering to the needs of
employers. STEM subjects are expensive to teach and are barely represented in courses
offered by alternative providers. The medical degree offered by the University
of Buckingham is an exception, but it is priced out of the reach of all but the
most wealthy. Only one of the private institutions described above, BPP
University, features on a
list of providers of Degree Apprenticeships: in general, it is HEFCE-funded
institutions that have introduced these apprenticeships.
Of course, it
could be argued that a more diverse set of alternative providers would be seen
if we could free them from the regulatory barriers that the Green Paper complains
of. However, the regulation is there for good reason. The fact that the IUG
group want to distance themselves from others in this sector should sound a
note of caution about the potential downsides of the alternative provider
market. It is noteworthy that most of the alternative providers from the IUG
list offer courses that are eligible for loans from Student Finance England. Only a year ago, Christopher Banks, Chairman
of the Quality Assurance Agency was complaining that money
was being squandered on loans to students attending dubious for-profit colleges.
Some institutions would encourage
students to take out loans to cover their fees, but then offer inadequate courses
associated with high drop-out rates. Mr
Banks was quoted as saying: “I would like
to make sure we quickly respond and reinforce the need for consistent quality
in higher education, because there is a danger, otherwise, that [the growth of
private providers] will tarnish the reputation of the sector.”
We can also
learn lessons from the USA, where the behaviour of some for-profit colleges in recruiting
students to pay for worthless degrees is nothing short of a scandal. We
should not forget that, only four years ago, the Apollo
Group, who own BPP University, was investigated by the US Government for misleading
students.
It is telling
that the Green Paper recognises the potential problems of a marketised higher
education sector, noting that students need protection from the consequences
when their institutions fail. This has not previously been recognised as a
risk, for the good reason that English universities have not failed. More
recently, we have seen considerable
hardship inflicted on overseas students when institutions have had their
licences to sponsor overseas students revoked. In future, we may find
students suffering, even after completing their course, if their degree comes
from an institution that no longer exists. It is frankly surprising that anyone
should be talking about reducing regulation of the private higher education
sector and speeding up approvals when there is already evidence of unprecedented
risks associated with the entrance of new providers.
There are many students
who might benefit from having a wider range of options in higher education; I
doubt that private HEIs are going to ‘drive up standards’ through competition,
but they could potentially make a difference by complementing what is currently
on offer. But if experience here, and in the USA, has taught us anything, it is
that, in order to work well, alternative providers need to be carefully regulated
and accredited only after establishing a solid track record.
*Correction: 24th December 2015; David Sweeney of HEFCE pointed out that the New College of Humanities is on the directory and can be found via the web interface. On the .csv file that I downloaded it is included under an alternative name, i.e. Tertiary Education Services Ltd.
PS, 3rd January 2016: The relationship between Tertiary Education Service and New College of the Humanities is discussed further here.
