‘Designation’ suspended at 22 private colleges

In a written ministerial statement on 19 November, David Willetts wrote:

“ We have … written to the 23 Alternative Providers that are expanding most rapidly to instruct them to recruit no more students for HNCs and HNDs in the current 2013/14 academic year.”

In fact, as revealed in today’s Guardian, the department for Business, Innovation and Skills suspended the ‘designation’ of all HNC & HND courses at those colleges. The suspension applies for the rest of the 2013/14 academic year. These were ‘the fastest growing’ providers of HNC and HND courses – there is no suggestion of impropriety, only that the departmental budget could not support such growth.

Eligible Home and EU students on a ‘designated’ course are eligible for tuition fees loans up to £6 000 per year and maintenance support (loans and grants). As London is the epicentre for new providers, the average maintenance loan is £6 800 per year, much higher than the average such loan across the rest of the sector.

As these are private colleges – the government has no control over recruitment. What the government has done instead is suspend access to support for students.The cutoff date is 18 November for 2013/14 academic year – those who already have offers must take up their places by January 2014.

That is, these colleges can continue to recruit Home and EU students, but students can no longer apply for student support.

Icon College, one of those suspended, has recruitment windows in January and May, in addition to the traditional September/October window. This intervention has therefore had an important impact.

Full information can be found here.

The Colleges affected are:

1 AA Hamilton College, London – 2 courses

2 Brit College Limited, London – 2 courses

3 Fairfield Academy, Croydon – 1 course

4 Grafton College, London – 12 courses

5 Icon College of Technology and Management, London – 8 courses

6 London Bridge Business Academy – 2 courses

7 London Churchill College Ltd – 4 courses

8 London School of Business and Finance – also operates in Birmingham & Manchester

            15 courses

9 London School of Science and Technology – 4 courses

10 Mont Rose School of Management and Sciences, London – 12 courses

11 Nelson College London, Ilford – 5 courses

12 OLC (Europe) Ltd incorporating EETTEC Ltd, Bolton – 4 courses

13 RTC Education Limited Harrow – 6 courses  

14 St Patrick’s International College, London – 7 courses

15 Stratford College London – 1 course

16 London College UCK – Far the biggest – nearly 100 

17 West London College of Business and Management Sciences – 6 courses

18 British Institute of Technology & Engineering, London  – 2 courses

19 East End Computing & Business College – 4 courses

20 Centre for Advance Studies Ltd, London  – 4 courses

21 EThames Graduate School Limited, Ilford – 6 courses

22 UK College of Business and Computing LTD, Ilford – 3 courses