Private college expansion

I have covered the exponential expansion of the numbers of funded full-time students at private colleges on this blog since its inception. Recent figures suggest that £900m of funding from the Student Loans Company will flow to more than 40 000 students this year.

Several colleges that hardly figure in the sector’s consciousness now have over 1000 full-time funded students.

How was such growth possible? Our latest work at the Guardian reveals how one recruitment agency used by several colleges operated outside job centres, tube stations and shopping malls.

This report and film follows on from last week’s work on London School of Science and Technology.

In November, the government intervened to suspend the recruitment of funded students at 23 of the fastest growing colleges, including those featured so far. Things may have improved, but back in the Autumn some colleges were enrolling hundreds of new students monthly and there’s no reason to suppose that without intervention growth wouldn’t have continued apace with all the pressures that entails.