U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, on Monday, vowed to “crackdown” on “rip-off” degrees, regulating the ability of poorly performing universities to admit students.
Under the new plans, the U.K.’s education regulator, the Office for Students (OfS), will be able to limit the number of students that can enroll in universities failing to meet certain earnings benchmarks for their graduates.
Fees for foundation courses — a year of courses for highly skilled degrees like medicine, will be capped at GBP 5760 instead of the currently permitted amount of GBP 9250.
Almost 30% of graduates do not get highly skilled work 15 months after graduation, according to the OfS and one in five graduates would have been better off without having gone to university according to the economics think-tank, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
“That is why we are taking action to crack down on rip-off university courses while boosting skills training and apprenticeships provision,” Mr. Sunak said in a statement.
“These changes will make it harder for those in parts of our country with the fewest graduate jobs to get to university and get on,” Shadow Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson ( Labour Party’) said on Twitter.
It is still unclear how Monday’s announcement will impact international students. Indian nationals got 118,000 visas in the year ending June 2022, the largest share by nationality.
