Draft Higher Education (Fee Limits for Accelerated Courses) (England) Regulations 2018

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 General Committees

[The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Chris Skidmore)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Higher Education (Fee Limits for Accelerated Courses) (England) Regulations 2018.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson.

The draft regulations were laid before Parliament on 29 November 2018. They should be read alongside the wider fee limits regulations which set tuition fee limits to apply to all standard or non-accelerated degree courses from August 2019 and were approved by Parliament last summer.

The Higher Education and Research Act 2017 provided that regulations may be made to set different fee limits specifically for accelerated courses. The draft regulations set out various fee limits in respect of accelerated degree courses starting from August 2019. The limits cover both full-time study years and permutations matching those of standard degrees, for example where a student takes an accelerated course that incorporates a sandwich year. All accelerated degree annual fee caps at public providers of degrees are set as a multiple of 1.2 times the annual standard degree equivalents.

An accelerated degree is the equivalent of a standard degree in every sense but one: it is completed one year sooner than the same degree studied at the widely established pace of three years of 30 weeks’ study and 22 weeks’ vacation each year. By studying for more weeks each year—about 45 weeks for the year—and taking shorter breaks between terms, accelerated students can complete exactly the same teaching content of, for example, that typical three-year degree, but graduate in two years.

Accelerated degrees are not new. About 20 public universities and 11 private providers already offer accelerated degree courses, although the range of subjects and the number of providers of accelerated degrees have remained small in the context of all undergraduate enrolments. We estimate that fewer than 1,000 students are enrolled on accelerated degree courses at public universities, with about a further 3,000 studying with private university providers.

Good examples of providers successfully offering accelerated degree courses include the University of Buckingham, which has delivered two-year degree courses for about 40 years. Its students regularly give excellent feedback on the quality of teaching and on their study experiences. Staffordshire University has offered accelerated degree courses for more than a decade, with a high proportion of mature and commuter students among its cohorts.

I have only been Universities Minister for about a month, but I have visited two institutions that celebrate their accelerated degree course provision. It was fascinating to discuss with students at St Mary’s University in Twickenham the theatre-production technical course that they were taking. It used to be offered as a three-year degree, but it has now become a two-year degree, because many students were simply finding work after two years and not completing their three-year course. As a result, St Mary’s decided to institute a two-year degree programme to help students not only to enter work but to achieve their qualification.

This morning, I visited Middlesex University London, where I had another fantastic discussion with students. They were on the business administration two-year accelerated degree course. All the students mentioned that, while such courses were not for everyone, they meant something not only to those people who wanted to get on in life, ensuring that that they would enter the world of work earlier, but perhaps to students who started a foundation course and wanted to go on to further study with a shorter time limit.

I can see the benefits of such courses being offered at universities around the country. The problem is that the existing limits on the annual fees that public universities can charge have made it hard for most public providers to offer accelerated degrees. The tuition fee cap applies to all public universities on an annual rather than a per-course basis. That reflects the length of the total period of study, but not the substantive volume or cost of teaching delivered in each study year.

Condensing three years’ teaching into two, by reducing the number of weeks of vacation downtime throughout the course, has generally not been seen as financially justifiable under the existing arrangements. Public providers of accelerated degrees, however, attest to the wider benefits that make accelerated provision worth while, which include highly motivated undergraduates; a more intense and engaged teaching experience; and the incentive to shake up established teaching and working practices and to innovate in tuition delivery.

For students to complete their degree one year sooner than a standard degree means that they accelerate their graduation and have one year less of living costs, crucially, alongside lower total tuition fees.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister said that St Mary’s University in Twickenham already offered accelerated degrees, but he then said that the financial circumstances of other universities meant that they were not willing to provide accelerated degrees. Why does he think financially St Mary’s can offer two-year accelerated degrees, but other universities cannot?

[Chris Skidmore]

That is a good point. As I have said, Buckingham has had accelerated degrees for 40 years, and I have a list of publicly funded HEs that I could share with the Committee, but uptake has been limited due to the restriction on the ability financially to provide those courses—the difference between an £18,000-a-year degree course and a £27,000-a-year one. St Mary’s in Twickenham has a course that runs for two years, but for a very limited number of students; it is not able to expand that course. Having talked to providers who currently run two-year courses, we have learned that they, too, have a limited ability to extend the programme to meet current and possible future demand. That is why this provision is in the regulations that have been introduced on the Floor the House, to make sure that we can benefit not only institutions that are yet to take up accelerated degrees, but institutions that may want to create new courses with accelerated programmes. I stress again that accelerated programmes are not a silver bullet; we are not assuming that every student will take up a two-year degree instead of a three-year or four-year course. However, they provide flexibility and innovation, and crucially allow for the greater student choice that I hope the regulations will provide.

As a result of students being able to take an accelerated degree over two years, they will start full-time work one year sooner than their peers; they will potentially benefit from an average annual salary of £19,000 straight away. Customer surveys conducted by the Student Loans Company in summer 2018 show that both accelerated and standard degree students regard the year of time saved as the most valuable benefit of accelerated degree study. As I have said, accelerated degrees are not for everyone, but for some—mature students, for example, or young people with a keen appetite for learning who want to study more and take fewer breaks to secure a faster entry or return to the workforce—they are exactly the right choice, or the only possible choice. Some employers also like accelerated degrees, as they offer an early opportunity to recruit demonstrably ambitious, focused and motivated graduates.

Following a commitment that the Department for Education gave in late 2017 during the passage of the 2017 Act, we consulted on a proposed 20% uplift in the annual tuition fee for accelerated degrees. That uplift aimed to ease the financial barrier inhibiting the wider provision of accelerated degree courses while still offering students a saving of roughly £5,550 on their total tuition fees, compared with a three-year degree course. On top of that, we must add the savings on living costs—roughly £7,500 a year—and also take into account a possible extra year of earned income as a result of starting work early. That is effectively going to benefit those who embark on a two-year accelerated degree course; it will be a saving for students.

Last year, we published our response to that consultation. It set out our intention to proceed with the regulations, to enable a specific new annual tuition fee for accelerated degrees at 1.2 times the standard equivalent. We consider that this fee will better reflect the actual weight of teaching and support delivered in the accelerated degree year; with it, more universities will be able to expand their range of courses and offer students greater choice, with more flexible modes of study. Wider provision will in turn offer many more students the choice of applying for an accelerated course in their preferred subject at their preferred university, and even with the increased annual fee cap, accelerated degrees offer big overall savings for students. As I have said, the total cost of tuition will be 20% lower, alongside no final year living costs and the unique opportunity to graduate and begin full-time work a year earlier.

The UK is widely envied for the quality and vigour of its higher education system. Our universities regularly rank among the best in the world. Their doors are open to anyone with the potential to succeed, including more disadvantaged students than ever before.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Would the Minister explain how the quality and academic rigour of these courses will be evaluated? Has there been an opportunity for pilot programmes? I know some concern has been expressed in various sectors about that.

[Chris Skidmore]

To take the hon. Lady’s point about quality and rigour, we would never want an accelerated degree course to be seen as a poor man’s degree— as somehow less rigorous and less beneficial. The standards that need to be maintained for those degrees must absolutely be the same as for full-time degrees. If we look at some of the institutions that have been offering accelerated degrees for a long time, they stand by their commitment that the teaching time and teaching intensity of those courses should remain exactly the same. Instead of about 30 weeks of study there are 45, and the number of tutors is the same. The point of the draft regulations is to provide for the extra investment in tuition staff that is needed to deliver an extended course across 45 weeks of the year. On the hon. Lady’s point about the teaching framework, I was at Middlesex earlier today talking to the vice-chancellor, Dr Tim Blackman, and he was absolutely insistent that this is still 360 credits of study. Whether over two or three years, 360 credits still need to happen.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Where these courses have been offered, has there been any change in access, for different socioeconomic groups in particular?

[Chris Skidmore]

When it comes to access and participation, one of the Government’s key commitments is to ensure that, regardless of their background, people are able to go to university, if they wish to take that route. The two-year accelerated degree course provides people with the opportunity to see a destination, to not have to cover an extra year of living costs, and to then go into work.

One of the two students I spoke to at Middlesex today was a girl who had started out on a higher apprenticeship at the City of London Corporation, without the qualifications to get her into a position to take a degree. She realised she had hit a wall, and that if she wanted to go further in her profession she would need to reach degree level, but, effectively, she had already begun work. What I am keen to expound to the Committee is that the two-year degree is not a silver-bullet solution; it is part of a menu of options that enables us to break down the artificial wall between further and higher education for students who may not have had the best start in life, those who are not from the most advantaged backgrounds and who may not have achieved the qualifications they have the potential to achieve.

I am keen to explore how students may take a foundation year and then an accelerated degree course on top, accessing higher education in a way in which they may not initially have been able to. We need to take this under the whole umbrella of future qualifications that will allow for the increased participation of disadvantaged students.

[Gareth Thomas]

Further to the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth, a number of years after the Government decided to put tuition fees up to £9,000, mature students were one of the groups in which significant numbers had been deterred from going to university. What discussions have the Minister and his Department had to check that the measure would not be a further discouragement to mature students?

[Chris Skidmore]

As the new Universities Minister, I am keen to be seen not just as a Minister for students. I am Minister for everyone in the HE sphere, and that covers mature students as well. It is crucial that we look at the decline in mature learners.

On mature learner provision, I hope that the expansion of the accelerated degree course will allow someone who has entered the world of work, or has a mortgage or other financial commitments, and who looks at a three or four-year degree course and thinks, “Maybe that’s just a bit too much of a time commitment”, to find that a degree of about two years, at an accelerated learning pace, will suit them. It is crucial that we look at things and outcomes through the eyes of the student, whether an 18-year-old or a mature learner. It is crucial that they have this option. We are not forcing two-year degrees on anyone; we are allowing an expansion to take place so that people can look at institutions and choose a course that will be tailored to their individual learning needs.

[Gareth Thomas]

If the Minister wants to be the Minister for students, presumably he has talked to student representative bodies. What is their assessment of the proposed 20% fees hike?

[Chris Skidmore]

I have been the Minister for a month, and I have been to about eight HE institutions so far. I have an ambition to reach them all. Whether I will be able to do that as a new year’s resolution I am not quite sure, but I am determined to get out and listen to the student voice and to concerns.

When I speak to students, I also want to ensure that they are getting the student experience and having the opportunity to build friendships as part of an HE community. What was really interesting in going to Middlesex was talking to some of the students who are doing the business administration course. They felt they had twice as much access to the student community because they got to meet different groups, including the peer group in the year above them, as a result of their accelerated course. They felt it was an advantage to be able to talk to both sets of peer groups in the course structure.

An evaluation was carried out before I became Universities Minister. It showed 92% support among students who take accelerated degree courses, but it raised the issue of public understanding of accelerated degrees—55% of students did not know they existed. There is a question about how we ensure that universities that want to investigate offering accelerated degree courses have the opportunity to do so, and the draft regulations will allow that expansion to take place.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

rose—

[Gareth Thomas]

rose—

[Chris Skidmore]

I am coming to the end of my speech, but I will take one more intervention. I have been quite generous to the hon. Gentleman, and I am sure he will be able to come in again later, so I give way to the hon. Lady.

[Jess Phillips]

The Minister has been incredibly generous. I would have quite liked to do my degree in two years. I am not sure it would have taken that long, actually—if I added up the hours of tuition, I could probably have done it in about five months. The Minister is presenting quite a good picture of access for mature students, people from different socioeconomic backgrounds and people who started through the apprenticeship route, but I fear there these measures may create a two-tier system. We can pretend that the university someone went to or the sort of degree they did does not matter, but we all live in reality, so are Oxford and Cambridge investigating offering two-year degrees?

[Chris Skidmore]

The hon. Lady makes an incredibly important point. When we look at the groups in our HE system, we have the Russell Group universities and groups such as GuildHE. I met representatives of GuildHE last week to discuss provision, and it supports accelerated degrees. I hope, by taking a bottom-up approach to allowing institutions to expand provision, we can ensure that no one is snobby about two-year degrees. I declare an interest: I went to Oxford University. A lot of my friends decided to study law, so they did a law conversion course and then the Bar vocational training to become a barrister or a solicitor. In effect, that is a two-year degree in law.

When we look at the reality, it is important that we champion accelerated degrees and make the case that they are an important provision. If the draft regulations pass, as I hope they will, one of the challenges I will have is going out and making it a key part of my mission as Universities Minister to say that we still need innovation in the HE sector. The Augar review will report shortly, but we must also level the playing field—I am sorry to use a horrible cliché—to ensure that FE routes and HE routes are synonymous and that no one can say going to an FE college, which may offer degrees or accelerated courses, is for other people’s children.

We need to raise standards across FE and to ensure that there is the ability for a crossover, almost like an education passport. There is also the question of people who start degrees being able to finish them at a time of their choosing. However, to start with, this measure passed into legislation through HERA 2017, and it will be incredibly advantageous if we can begin work to demonstrate how new course provision will help expand the market and increase student choice.

All our students deserve high quality and good value from their university education. As I said, the draft regulations are a key part of our wider work to make that an accessible reality for everyone. They align with the Government’s ambitions for a diverse and flexible post-18 education, which is currently being developed, and I hope that the Committee approves them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Skidmore]

I thank the Committee for taking time to consider the regulations.

I will turn to points made by the shadow Minister in what was a rather wide-ranging speech. Turning to some of the broader issues around the Augar review, I am sure he will understand that it is an independently led review that will report in due course in 2019. I, as much as anyone else in this House, look forward to studying its conclusions carefully.

We agree on the importance of creating greater flexibility in post-18 provision. Putting party political hats aside, we all understand that we need to work harder on ensuring that those who are able to go to university have the opportunity to do so. The Government have put access and participation for the most disadvantaged communities right at the heart of our vision, and we have seen an increase of 52% in the most disadvantaged students going to university since 2009. We all know that more must be done to ensure that we open up the vocational and technical route for those students who deserve better, and for our economy and our industrial strategy, ensuring that we can increase productivity and develop a dynamic and modern economy.

It is in light of that that we have introduced the regulations. This is the beginning of what I hope will be a far greater flexible provision in post-18 education—[Interruption.] Would the hon. Member for Harrow West like to intervene?

[Gareth Thomas]

No—I was heckling.

[Chris Skidmore]

I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s heckle in a moment. I wanted to start on a point of agreement, which is that Members on both sides of the Committee share the ambition that we can and must do more for post-18 education. As for the regulations—the point on which the hon. Gentleman heckled—increasing the cost of fees by 20% must be seen in the round: this is a saving of £5,500 for a two-year degree as opposed to fees for a three-year degree. It is a saving of one year, or £7,500, on living costs and, crucially, potentially a gain of up to £19,000 of annual earnings if that student is able to access the workplace early. I stress that this is not a silver bullet. It is not the only part of a strategy that must deliver for students in higher education; it is opening up a menu of options that we hope to develop.

The shadow Minister talked about access for disadvantaged students. The Government want to ensure that the most disadvantaged students are able to access this provision. Our consultation on accelerated degree proposals asked higher education providers specifically about access arrangements, and 74% responded that they wanted accelerated degrees to be treated the same as any other higher course fees for the purpose of access. We have seen a revolution in the amount of funds spent on access and participation over the past four or five years, from £440 million to £860 million. We must look at how we can invest to ensure that we open those routes for the most disadvantaged students.

[Gordon Marsden]

I appreciate that I spoke at some length. Access and participation are absolutely crucial, but one question is whether the money is spent well in the first place. I am sure the Minister will look at that. He also talks about the financial details and all the rest of it. The truth of the matter is that many people, particularly adult students, for perfectly good reasons will not sit down with a three-year prospectus but will ask themselves what they can afford that year. That is the crux of it, and that is why we are concerned that this 20% increase will nudge people away from participating, rather than nudging them towards it.

[Chris Skidmore]

I politely disagree with the hon. Gentleman on discouraging access. The figures demonstrate that, when students have been asked about potential two-year degree routes—in the context of saving over an envelope of two years instead of three—60% responded that they would have considered it had it been on offer. It is important that we allow an opportunity for this course provision to be established. We are not forcing universities or HE providers to offer accelerated degrees as an option. We are just ensuring that we can incentivise it for the future.

[Jess Phillips]

I thank the Minister again for his generosity in giving way. Will any review process be put in place, and what targets and standards will be used? We need to make sure that lots of people who go through these accelerated courses do not come out without demonstrably higher earnings, a better education or better options while still paying more money each year. How will we assess and make sure that people who do these courses end up with the same prospects as people who do a three-year course? We do not want to create a two-tier system for people who it is harder for—single mums and so on—and essentially charge them more per year.

[Chris Skidmore]

On the point around charging per year versus the overall charging mechanism across three years, they will still be charged £22,000 instead of £27,000.

[Jess Phillips]

I am sure they will be thrilled with that reduction—£22,000.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Order.

[Chris Skidmore]

The hon. Lady’s point about a review mechanism is welcome, and I entirely agree with her that it is important. We have the ability to analyse data to a greater extent than in the past. The longitudinal educational outcomes—LEO—data has been tracking students, which I think began in 2008 under the previous Labour Government. That is now coming to fruition and provides a context in which we can weigh up value for money and return on investment.

With that data comes other issues around social value and making sure that we do not lose sight of courses such as nursing, for instance. That may be perceived to provide low value for money or return on investment, but we absolutely need more nurses and routes into nursing. The two-year degree provision allows for an extension route into nursing through nurse support workers, who may reach a certain level of qualification and may want to access a nursing degree. This is about breaking down those barriers. It is a social justice argument, saying to somebody who perhaps did not get the qualifications to access higher education when they were 18 that they can return to a degree and get that qualification. By having that degree, they are able to access that level of nursing that they may have wished to access. It is about fulfilling people’s dreams across a wide range of access measures, not only at the access points at 18.

An important point that I want to put on the record is that we will undertake to assess the effectiveness of accelerated degree funding and expenditure on access measures compared with their standard equivalents in the accelerated degree review, to be undertaken three years after the implementation of the draft regulations. I will take away the points made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley on the context of that review and what it will cover in its evaluation.

On the workload of university staff, as I have said, the provision of accelerated degrees is not mandatory. I put that point to Middlesex University staff today, and they felt that there was no diminution of teaching time. I asked the teaching professionals—the academics—directly whether it would compromise their ability to research, and the answer was no. They said that they had managed to structure a course that did not increase individual teaching time; the teaching time is spread across a range of individuals throughout the year. There is a learning opportunity, and I am keen for institutions that have successfully implemented two-year degrees to spread best practice about how courses might be structured so that academics do not lose their research potential across the year.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I worked for 10 years at the University of Liverpool, and I spent my summers prepping new courses, reading and writing articles. We were compelled to do that to make sure we had the appropriate ranking—it was the research assessment exercise at the time. It would have been absolutely impossible to do the stuff we did during the summer and prepare for a truncated course.

[Chris Skidmore]

What Middlesex and other institutions have done is to say that those who are working in the summer months have the opportunity to find their research time elsewhere in the year. They have been successful in ensuring that there is no diminution in the ability to conduct research; it just takes place at a different time. We have seen flexibility in academic research. Not everyone decides to book off the summer. Some people work in the summer but have what is effectively a mini-sabbatical elsewhere in the year, with other people taking up their teaching time.

Some universities provide accelerated degrees, which ensure that they have more study weeks per annum than the mainstream 30 weeks a year. They have managed to budget effectively, innovatively and flexibly with their academic and administrative staff to deliver more demanding in-year courses, including accelerated courses.

In summary, these regulations will encourage and enable existing providers to expand their accelerated offers, and new providers to offer accelerated degrees and discover the realities, challenges and benefits for the students and themselves. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put.