Rishi Sunak has announced plans to cap the number of students who can take “low-value” university degrees.
Limits will be imposed on courses that do not have a high proportion of graduates getting professional jobs, pursuing further studies, or starting businesses.
The policy will restrict student applications in England for the first time since the Government scrapped the previous numbers cap in 2015.
Critics argue the plans are a rehash of previous policy announcements and will make it harder for young people to pursue their aspirations.
The maximum fee that can be charged for classroom-based foundation year courses will also be reduced to £5,760 — down from £9,250 currently — under the measures.
Opposition parties criticised the measures on Friday, saying they would make it harder for young people to achieve their aspirations.
The announcement by the Prime Minister, and Education Secretary Gillian Keegan on Monday (July 17) is part of the Government’s response to the Augar review, established by Theresa May back in 2017.
PM Sunak said: “The UK is home to some of the best universities in the world and studying for a degree can be immensely rewarding.
“But too many young people are being sold a false dream and end up doing a poor quality course at the taxpayers’ expense that doesn’t offer the prospect of a decent job at the end of it.”
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.”
In response to the proposals, University and College Union general secretary Jo Grady said: “This shows how wrong Tory government’s priorities are. If they get their way, only the richest students would be able to study cultural subjects.
“Sunak was able to study philosophy, the Tory Government should stop trying to deny working-class people the same opportunities.
“It is clear they have misunderstood the value of learning and the value our members add to society.”
But what is considered a low-value degree? Here is everything we know:
What is a low-value degree?
Student caps will be introduced on courses that do not have a high proportion of graduates getting a professional job, going into postgraduate study, or starting a business.
Under the plans, the Office for Students (OfS) — which regulates universities in England — will be asked to limit the number of students universities can recruit on to courses that are seen to fail to deliver good outcomes for graduates.
In January, a consultation was launched by the OfS to look at the new “minimum acceptable” standards in a bid to tackle “poor-quality” courses.
For each undergraduate degree, universities are expected to have 80 per cent of students continuing into the second year of their course, 75 per cent completing their qualification, and 60 per cent going into “professional employment or further study” after graduation.
In a report by the i, 26 universities had subject areas where 2018-19 degree starters were not projected to hit targets for both course completion and progression.
It reported how data curated by a thinktank named Onward found that the University of Wolverhampton had the highest number of subjects judged to be low value according to the criteria. Five subject areas failed to meet the thresholds: sociology, social policy and anthropology; psychology; law; creative arts and design; and business and management.
London Metropolitan University and London South Bank University also both had three subject areas not meeting the thresholds in the data.
A full list of “non-value” courses has not yet been released, but it is expected each university will have to provide data on each course progression, and those deemed failing will be either limited in numbers or even no longer be offered.
