Sunak to force English universities to cap numbers of students on ‘low-value’ degrees

Rishi Sunak will force universities to limit the number of students taking “low-value” degrees in England, a measure which is most likely to hit working class and black, Asian and minority ethnic applicants.

Courses will be capped that do not have a high proportion of graduates getting a professional job, going into postgraduate study or starting a business, the prime minister will announce on Monday.

But vice-chancellors say the measures will act as a “red flag to students”, who will be turned off the idea of entering a capped course as they feel it will damage their life chances, at considerable cost to institutions.

The numbers cap is unlikely to affect the bulk of courses offered by Oxbridge or Russell Group universities, whose students tend to go on to “highly skilled” jobs requiring a degree and above-average earnings.

Critics of the move say that it effectively penalises universities and courses with a high proportion of working-class students, who have fewer financial resources or family support and so are more likely to drop out.

“This will effectively act as a red flag to students. Who wants to apply to a ‘low value’ course?” said one vice-chancellor, who added that universities might also become more cautious over admitting students who might be less likely to graduate or want professional careers.

The concentration on “graduate jobs” and higher salaries may also stop some minority ethnic groups from gaining the benefits of a degree. Higher education sources say number caps could be very damaging in subjects or courses with substantial numbers of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, or disabled or mature students.

Nevertheless, the government appears to have moved away from applying across-the-board minimum entry requirements for school-leavers, such as minimum A-level or GCSE scores.

Minimum academic requirements for taking out student loans had been floated as a way of controlling student numbers but are said to be too blunt and require too many exemptions to be practical.

The policy will limit student applications in England for the first time since the government scrapped the previous institutional numbers cap in 2015, which set off a surge in applications to selective universities.

Opposition politicians condemned the policy on Friday. A Labour spokesperson said: “After 13 years of failure in education, all the Conservatives and this out-of-touch prime minister have to offer are yet more barriers to young people’s aspirations – rather than working to raise standards and outcomes.

“The difference between our parties couldn’t be clearer: Labour wants to smash the class ceiling while the Conservatives simply want to reinforce it.”

Munira Wilson, the Liberal Democrats’ education spokesperson, said: “Rishi Sunak is so out of ideas that he’s dug up a new version of a policy the Conservatives have announced and then unannounced twice over.

“Universities don’t want this. It’s a cap on aspiration, making it harder for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to go on to further study.”

The government appears to have moved away from other plans – such as applying across-the-board minimum entry requirements for school-leavers, for example minimum A-level or GCSE scores.

Minimum academic requirements for taking out student loans had been floated as a way of controlling student numbers but are said to be too blunt and require too many exemptions to be practical.

The administration of the student numbers cap will effectively go to the higher education regulator for England from 2024-25. The Office for Students’ (OfS) “B3” conditions currently measure individual university courses on a variety of metrics, including the pass rate, dropout rate and the proportion of students who go on to “graduate-level” or professional jobs.

The OfS can penalise individual courses where fewer than 60% of students go on to further study, professional work or similar “positive outcomes” within 15 months of graduating. The B3 conditions also require at least 80% of full-time students to continue their studies, and 75% of full-time students to complete their courses.

Foundation year courses offered by universities, aimed at students without course qualifications – especially disadvantaged or mature students – will also be subject to new limits, including a fee cap of £6,000 to bring them into line with the fees charged by further education colleges.

The plans were cautiously welcomed by Robin Walker, who chairs the education select committee.

The Conservative MP said: “Given the substantial amounts of public money that go into supporting students to go to universities, I think it’s legitimate for government to look at where that delivers value. But the committee will want to scrutinise the detail of any proposals, and we’ll look forward doing so in due course.”

Sunak’s announcements are the government’s long-awaited final response to the Augar review of tertiary education, which was itself launched by Theresa May as prime minister back in 2017.

Much of the government’s response involving changes to the student loans system in England has already been announced. It has substantially increased the proportion of loans that most graduates will repay, by lowering the starting salary threshold at which repayments are made and extending the repayment term of student loans from 30 years to 40 years.

But the changes will do little or nothing to improve the financial position of English universities, which have had undergraduate tuition fees frozen at £9,250 per student since 2017. Inflation has eroded the value of fees by about a third, and universities say they lose money on every undergraduate course taken by a UK student.