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How removing funding disparities for ‘disruptor institutions’ could help fulfil the ambition of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement

  • 5 February 2025
  • By Harriet Dunbar-Morris
  • Professor Harriet Dunbar-Morris is Pro Vice-Chancellor Academic and Provost at The University of Buckingham.

Whilst we are still waiting for the government to decide on the operationalisation of the future direction of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE), it is easy to agree that providing all new learners with a tuition fee loan entitlement to the equivalent of four years of post-18 education to use up to the age of 60 is a good thing in principle.

In recent articles, Professor Deborah Johnston and Rose Stephenson have both presented useful positions and summaries on the status quo. For the University of Buckingham, the merits of the LLE are clear, but it is the relationship between the LLE and courses of different lengths that is central to our concern.

At Buckingham, we take pride in our unique approach to education. As a disruptor institution and the only private university in the UK with a Royal Charter, we emphasise our small and independent nature. Our distinctive positioning has enabled us to create a unique learning environment. We have successfully developed ‘accelerated degrees’, including our flagship degree models: the two-year undergraduate degree and the four-and-a-half-year undergraduate medical degree.

Where other institutions have a long summer holiday, at Buckingham we have a fourth term – the same amount of classroom time over a whole degree as in other universities, but a term in the summer which means that students can enter the labour market a year earlier and incur a year’s less accommodation and living expenses as well. 

Alternatively, in three years, our students at Buckingham can undertake two qualifications: a foundation plus an undergraduate or an undergraduate plus a postgraduate degree. The year’s shape also more closely resembles the world of work and therefore ably prepares students more authentically for their future careers. We know this approach is working, and adds value. We are in the Top 10 for Graduate Prospects (outcomes) and:

  • 92% of our graduates agree their current activity is meaningful (sector 85%).
  • 88% of our graduates feel their current activity fits with their future plans (sector 78%).
  • 83% of our graduates say they are using what they learn while studying (sector 69%).
  • 97% of our graduates are in work or study (sector 89%).
  • 72% of our graduates are in full-time employment (sector 61%).

Buckingham has been a beacon for accelerated degrees to help students achieve their degrees in a shorter period and get out into the workplace or onto further study sooner. We can also see this model allowing students to interrupt their studies and take their degrees in shorter chunks (each of our terms, for example), which would be possible with the LLE framework once it is implemented. However, there is a fundamental unfairness facing Buckingham and others that needs to be addressed.

To understand this issue, we must first delve into the technical world of registering with the Office for Students (OfS), the regulator for higher education in England. Providers of higher education can (although not at the moment as new registrations are paused) register with the OfS under two categories:

1) Approved (fee cap)

    Providers in the Approved (fee cap) category can only charge up to the fee cap of £9,250 (2024/25) / £9,535 (2025/26) for full-time students. Students can take out a tuition fee loan to cover their entire fee (for undergraduate courses). Approved (fee cap) providers can also access teaching and research grant funding. Most institutions are in this category.

    2) Approved

    Providers in the Approved category, which includes Buckingham, can charge tuition fees above the cap. However, students at these institutions can only access tuition fee loans up to the lower limit (£6,355 per annum for three-year programmes and £7,625 per annum for two-year programmes). Any additional fees charged need to be covered privately. Further, these institutions cannot access teaching and research grants.

    Because of our category of registration, students can only get the fee loan for the accelerated (two-year) degree programmes at the lower fee loan limit. Our students study for more of the year, and in each of their two years, yet they are entitled to less of a loan each year to support their learning, meaning that through the current category of registration they are discriminated against, even though our accelerated degrees are clearly better for getting students into the workforce and for the skills agenda being pushed by the new Labour government.

    What is also grossly unfair is that despite approved providers being unable to access direct government funding for learning and teaching, research, or capital activity, they remain subject to nearly every aspect of OfS regulation. One exception is the Access and Participation Plan (although we still produce an Access Statement). Yet, re-stating the above, students at approved category institutions cannot benefit from a full loan for the studying they do.

    So, as the government considers how to support the skills agenda and deliver on skills shortages, here at Buckingham we make a request on behalf of the sector and the potential students: implement the LLE and remove the disparities.

    We are calling for one of two developments:

    • A government review to address tuition fee loan eligibility (tied to current categorisations). Why should students be disadvantaged for the loan they can apply for by the category of their institution’s registration? In The University of Buckingham’s case, we have a TEF, we meet OfS requirements, and we even directly support the government’s desire to get students into work faster. Should it not be £9,250 (or now £9,535 from 2025/26) for all?
    • If not that, a change to loans for the credits studied will allow the students studying in that fourth term with us at Buckingham, and completing in two years, to be able to seek loans for the full amount of their two years of full-time study. The point here is that the implementation of the LLE means that the loan is for the credit instead, so this inequity is removed. All students can get a loan for the credit they study. Our students then would, as a bonus, gain the credit quicker, as they would study over two years.

    Most students, due to the cost of living and other responsibilities, should now be considered part-time students, and we need to consider ways to help them fit their lives around their studies – something we certainly pride ourselves on. To support those who also need to work during their intensive studies, we timetable differently and teach differently. Ultimately this is about helping every one of our students to study more effectively (and in a shorter timescale), and as presented in The University of Buckingham’s Strategic Plan 2023-28, supporting our students by embedding employability and entrepreneurship within the curriculum.

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    1 comment

    1. The good news is that the government has spotted the issue with accelerated degrees. They had previously set the regulated fee at an arbitrarily lower level than the credits you’d expect the student to achieve. That will stop with the LLE: if you take 180 credits on a course in a year – you’ll get a fee loan for 180 credits worth. There’s a quirk though – we don’t yet know if a student can add extra credit if they are taking a 120 credit course. Can students accelerate their own study – say with a summer session or by taking an extra module in semester time? We think the LLE is about lower intensity study, but what if its more?
      On Approved (fee cap) registration, Buckingham should remind everyone why they don’t apply to join that category rather than ask to apply parts of the benefits to them? Being ‘Approved’ allows Buckingham to set a fee higher than the regulated fee (although the students don’t get loaned the full amount). If the new accelerated fee limit is sufficient for Buckingham, then they can move to ‘fee cap’ for the cost of writing a APP (if that’s not too ‘woke’ for them).

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