Higher Education: Finance

(asked on 1st September 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government is providing additional financial support to higher education providers to support larger numbers of students following the removal of temporary student number controls.


Answered by
Michelle Donelan Portrait
Michelle Donelan
Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
This question was answered on 9th September 2020

We have announced that, subject to parliamentary approval, we will completely remove temporary student number controls to help ensure there are no additional barriers to students being able to progress to higher education.

We are working closely with the sector to create additional capacity and ensure providers are as flexible as possible. To do this, we are taking steps such as lifting caps on domestic medicine and dentistry courses in the next academic year. We are also supporting providers to offer places to as many students who have met the grades for their current offer as they have capacity for and where there are clinical placements available, through additional grant funding to support the costs of this provision.

We are also providing additional teaching grant funding to increase capacity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and other high-cost subjects which are vital to the country’s social needs and economy. The Office for Students (OfS) will consult the sector on the details of how the allocations are made.

Providers will also be eligible to bid for a share of up to £10 million funding to support capital expenditure. This funding will be used to support the infrastructure required to accommodate additional students recruited as a result of the changes to policy on A level grades.

The fund will be administered by the OfS, and providers will be eligible to bid for projects that support expansion in 2020-21.

We will continue to monitor the situation and to consider the effects that deferrals will have on future years. Funding decisions for future years will be taken at the Spending Review.

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