Whilst there may be good reasons for suspending tuition fee payments to “safeguard public funding and ensure students’ interests are protected”, decisions taken to safeguard the public purse often risk overlooking the individual students who are left behind.
In April 2024 the Office for Students (OfS) opened an investigation in relation to Applied Business Academy (ABA) to consider whether it had complied with requirements to provide accurate information about its students, and whether it had effective management and governance arrangements in place.
In September 2024, the Department for Education (DfE) instructed the Student Loans Company to suspend all tuition fee payments to ABA, until OfS had completed its investigation. On 27 September, ABA asked the OfS to remove it from the Register because it was no longer able to provide higher education. A decision to permanently close ABA was made on 22 October 2024 and liquidators were appointed.
On 2 April 2025 OfS published a summary of its investigation. We understand around 300 current and prospective students were on courses partnered with universities who supported students through the closure and offered who were offered individual guidance sessions setting out options which included transfer to complete study as per the student protection plans.
The other group of students
However, there were also students who were studying for a Level 5 Diploma in Education and Training (DET) awarded by City and Guilds and some awarded by Organisation for Hospitality and Tourism Management (OTHM) – both at the time eligible for student loan finance. According to the OfS investigation this number looks to be just over 2,000.
The route to raise complaints and seek redress for these students is different to the route for students on courses partnered with universities. As set out in the section of our Good Practice Framework that covers partnership arrangements, awarding universities and delivery partners will both be members of the OIA, so that students can benefit from a route to independent review of both party’s responsibilities. Where only one partner is a member of the OIA, our remit to review issues of concern to students is more limited.
As the shape of the HE sector has changed, our legislation has been amended several times to bring as many delivery bodies and awarding institutions accessing public money as possible within our membership, to ensure that all students have access to an independent review of their complaints. But not all Awarding Organisations are currently OIA members, even where these courses are eligible for student finance.
Access and risk
There are clearly benefits to students of having access to student finance to access non- universities-awarded courses such as HND, HNC and level 4 or 5 courses with a Higher Technical Qualification approval. But we are concerned that the current arrangements may be inequitable, given that some students cannot seek an independent review of some awarding organisations’ acts or omissions.
We have sought to close this gap by agreeing with Ofqual that awarding organisations being in membership of the OIA Scheme is compatible with Ofqual regulation and opening our Non-Qualifying membership up for awarding organisations.
The impact on students of the different arrangements materialises further in cases of provider closure. In previous provider closure cases either the university has proactively put in place appropriate options or if they wanted to raise a complaint, the OIA could look at what the university’s role is in resolving this.
As things stand, students at a delivery partner that ceases to operate at short notice, on courses awarded by an organisation that is not an OIA member, may find themselves with no clear independent route for complaints and redress. In our experience, students studying at HE level via a non-university awarded route and accessing higher education student finance, have no real understanding of this difference from those on a university awarded course.
In the case of ABA, we have received a small number of complaints from students on the DET course, who are not able to access any financial remedy since ABA has gone into liquidation and the only option is for the students to become an unsecured creditor against ABA.
We understand that where City and Guilds has received the work of students, there was not sufficient evidence for them to confirm the qualification requirements had been met for any student. This has been particularly difficult news for some students, many of whom believed that they had passed the course and were simply awaiting receipt of their certificate. They are unable to access further funding to re-take the year, compensation or travel costs to complete their studies.
In the current financial climate and where franchise provision is coming under more scrutiny, it’s hard to imagine there will not be more students in this situation at a provider impacted by a closure. Alongside this the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) will potentially open more level 4 and 5 “non university” awarded courses where students may be unable to seek independent redress.
Whilst we completely agree that protecting public funds is important, we mustn’t forget that there is a real and significant human cost for the genuine students, sometimes with few sources of personal support to help them navigate their limited options, left behind.
