Universities will be ‘fined’ for failing working class students
The ones who score badly won’t be allowed to raise their tuition fees
Roisin LaniganNew plans will see universities penalised with ‘fines’ for failing poorer students.
Government plans to improve teaching quality on English campuses mean universities who fail to open up to working-class students, get them through degrees and find them good grad jobs, will have their funding cut.
Universities which fail to attract “disadvantaged students”, or see them drop out after first year, could end up scoring badly in the new assessment – meaning they’d be banned from raising tuition fees in line with inflation.
Universities minister Jo Johnson told The Sunday Times: “Widening participation and access will be intimately linked to the new assessment, the teaching excellence framework”.
The minister warned universities will be judged on the progress made by poor students, “measuring, for example, their retention and completion rates and the universities’ success in moving students on to further study or graduate work”.
The plans come from university minister Jo Johnson
Currently top universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Exeter, Durham, Edinburgh and Bristol fail to reach government benchmarks for the proportion of their students coming from state schools.
David Cameron’s plans are to double the proportion of students from a disadvantaged background entering higher education by 2020.