OfS registration fees frozen for 2024–25
Michael Salmon is News Editor at Wonkhe
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It’s that point in the calendar where the Office for Students confirms registration fees for the next academic year. Coming a few days after its bleak assessment of the English sector’s financial sustainability, a big hike along the lines of last year’s 18.5 per cent rise would have gone down particularly badly.
But a full freeze – a real terms cut, let’s be honest, with inflation for once being in universities’ favour – was somewhat unexpected. Last time around a big part of the justification was the additional Designated Quality Body responsibilities that the regulator had taken on. And this coming year will see the regulator open up a new free speech complaints hotline among other things.
The fees will as usual be calculated using HESA (or EFSA, for certain providers) data from the last full academic year, according to the number of student FTEs that a provider has. Now we haven’t had last year’s HESA Student data yet, famously, and it’s noted that “where data submitted is assessed by the OfS as not of sufficient quality, information will be taken from the financial tables submitted as part of the Annual Financial Return (AFR) or from the financial tables submitted as part of the registration process.” This caveat has in the past only applied to providers that did not make a data return – the mention of data quality is new.
The full fee list is in Annex A of the technical guidance, where you can see that annual registration fees for 2023–24 now also apply to 2024–25. Here’s the table:
| Band | Full-time equivalent number range | Band fee |
|---|---|---|
| A | Not more than 25 | £14,220 |
| B | More than 25 but no more than 50 | £17,597 |
| C | More than 50 but no more than 75 | £22,041 |
| D | More than 75 but no more than 100 | £27,611 |
| E | More than 100 but no more than 300 | £34,543 |
| F | More than 300 but no more than 500 | £43,312 |
| G | More than 500 but no more than 1,000 | £54,332 |
| H | More than 1,000 but no more than 1,500 | £68,197 |
| I | More than 1,500 but no more than 2,500 | £85,616 |
| J | More than 2,500 but no more than 5,000 | £107,598 |
| K | More than 5,000 but no more than 10,000 | £135,327 |
| L | More than 10,000 but no more than 20,000 | £170,344 |
| M | More than 20,000 | £214,485 |
We’ve asked OfS for comment and will update this piece depending on what they say. A statutory instrument to raise fees has not been laid (as they have not gone up).