OfS fee levels 2021-22

Presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 11 of the Higher Education and Research Act, it’s a list (as a pdf and in excel) of higher education fee levels in England!

If, unlike Susan Lapworth and I, you haven’t memorised Section 11 of HERA – it says:

Duty to publish a list regarding the fee limit condition
(1) The OfS must publish in each year a list of—
(a) the registered higher education providers who have a fee limit condition as an ongoing registration condition, and
(b) the fee limits as determined under Schedule 2 in relation to each of those providers for fees in connection with each qualifying course provided by the provider in respect of each relevant academic year.
(2) A “relevant academic year”, in relation to a qualifying course, is an academic year which is applicable to the course and which is due to start in the calendar year after the calendar year in which the list is published.
(3) The OfS must send a copy of each published list to the Secretary of State who must lay it before Parliament.
(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations prescribe the date by which a list under this section must be published by the OfS.

So here’s what we get:

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The “prescribed fee caps” are the maximum chargeable based on the regulations laid by the Secretary of State – they vary by course type (or course component type) and whether or not a provider has a TEF award.

The “maximum fees chargeable” are what providers actually charge, based on the amounts in the annual fee data collection which happens as a part of the Access and Participation Plan approval process.

This is not a collection of all “sticker prices” published by providers, which would be both useful and interesting. It simply represents the maximum amount charged by each provider for each kind of course.

It is a beautiful picture of a market based on price that is not working, never has, and never will.