A new minimum English language requirement for student finance

This time the missive to VCs concerns “student outcomes and quality” – in other words, it’s (yet) another attempt to protect students from low-value courses.

It’s sadly not my excellent idea – that given most students borrow the money to pay tuition fees, we could protect them by writing off the remainder of their loan after say, oh I don’t know, 30 years.

Nor is it my other idea, which is introducing a regulatory system (paid for by students) designed to measure outcomes and identify if subject areas are Gold, Bronze, Silver or “require improvement”. And then deliver the improvement.

Instead, it’s another entry in the ongoing saga of “we have a problem with franchised-out private non-specialist HE, but for some reason keep trying to design complicated ways of tackling it that makes everyone feel rubbish”.

We’ve already had “make them register with OfS” and the botched “weekend delivery” omnishambles. The letter reminds us that to linking future inflationary fee uplifts to providers’ quality ratings is coming (making it harder for those providers to improve), that OfS may well choke expansion in Bronze providers, and that DfE is hoping for time in Parliament to limit the growth of some courses that lead to poor earnings returns at some providers.

All of these things really seem to be about franchised-out private non-specialist HE without saying so. And so is the latest wheeze:

We intend to consult in the autumn on a new minimum English language requirement for student finance, to provide greater confidence that recipients are able to benefit from their course.

God forbid that someone somewhere looks at things like what we’d love students to study, or where we’d like them to do so. Just imagine if someone looked at the obscene profits still being made by providers using the loan system as a cashpoint. They could also ask themselves what the current incentives are driving recruitment behaviour and tackle them.

My guess is that graduates of the big business courses franchised expansion are starting to show up (or, actually, not show up) in DfE’s student loan repayment models – which as we’ve discussed before means writing off more of years of loans all in one year.

If true – and we may know more in July – the Treasury will be demanding action from DfE. Sadly, this fiddling about appears to be the best it can do. Which is odd, because it clearly isn't the best DfE can do. It just won't do it in HE.