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A success story from the world of collaborative partnerships

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 12h

I have a different definition of ‘rip off’ in mind. There’s at least 100,000 people signed up to being taught business management in converted office blocks in various city centres. Take the excessive profits off the for-profit providers.
moremeansbetter.wordpress.com/2025/10/07/a...

A summary of six years of financial accounts of one of England’s more successful delivery partners (as judged by the profits made and dividends paid).

A success story from the world of collaborative partnerships

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 1d

If you add up the last six years accounts at the London School of Commerce, they’ve made profits before tax of £151m on the course fee income of £331m passed on from other providers to teach their students. The owners have had £101m in dividends.

moremeansbetter.wordpress.com/2025/10/07/a...

A summary of six years of financial accounts of one of England’s more successful delivery partners (as judged by the profits made and dividends paid).

Joining The Dots: Skills, regeneration, funding systems and Barrow-in-Furness. - HEPI

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 1d

OfS Register News: a Leicestershire merger means there’s one fewer provider. On 1 August Loughborough College and SMB Group merged, on 3 October SMB were removed from the register.

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 1d

Government can see HE provision as part of a strategy - the new Cumbria campus in Barrow is an excellent example. But, while it can do a lot with capital funding, it has few levers on recurrent funds: say to tweak student finance or underpin expensive courses.

www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/10/07/j...

This HEPI blog was kindly authored by Professor Julie Mennell, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cumbria, and Martin Williams, Chair of the University of Cumbria. Barrow-in-Furness, now in the cou...

www.hepi.ac.uk

What the saga of Oxford Business College tells us about regulation and franchising

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 1d

The ‘de-designation’ process was unfair, said the High Court. Hopefully the new regulatory framework for franchises is fairer - particularly to students.
If genuine, 4700 people had their higher education disrupted this year.
Look at the allegations - it’s a big ‘if’

wonkhe.com/blogs/what-t...

The Secretary of State de-designated courses delivered by Oxford Business College through franchise agreements, but a court found that her decision contravened essential requirements of procedural fai...

wonkhe.com

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 2d

It’s lovely at Maynooth, with masses of history (plus the only higher education architecture completed by Pugin) #histed

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 3d

The judgement about Oxford Business College’s designation is worth a read. In April 2025 OBC had 5000 students, by May the name had come off the main building in Oxford. Where did 4700 students go: if they transferred where are they being taught?

drive.google.com/file/d/1H8ZE...

OsneyMead building. OBC had rooms on the upper floor. You can just make out the outline of the lettering on the side of the building.

From the judgement:

The result of the Decision, on OBC's case, is to destroy its business with effect from
1 September 2025. It is said that serious damage has already been caused. Of its 5,000 students as at the 17 April 2025, approximately 4,700 have since withdrawn or been transferred out of OBC pursuant to teachout arrangements required following the Decision. Those students had been registered on courses delivered by OBC who had been expected to continue with their courses for the rest of their usually three- or fouryear duration. OBC has also lost 1,500 new students who had been scheduled to commence their studies after 31 August 2025. 500 NCG students had been intending to commence their courses in September 2025, and 1,000 NCD students would have commenced their courses in the same month, and in January 2026. OBC has had…

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 6d

The full judgement is worth reading.

A Victory for Procedural Fairness: Oxford Business College Wins

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 6d

Worth noting this on the procedural fairness of the decision to de-designate Oxford Business College.

rfblegal.co.uk/insights/a-v...

High Court rules in Oxford Business College’s favour, exposing DfE overreach and affirming fairness, transparency, and the rule of law.

rfblegal.co.uk

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 7d

Meanwhile, the sagacious home office are newly confident that high potential individuals attend Politecnico di Milano and not the University of Copenhagen because of the reliability of global rankings…

QS ranking Karlsruhe & Milano are joint 98th, Zurich is 100th, Copenhagen 101st

What can OfS do about franchises?

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 7d

This is very much my personal response to the OfS consultation on oversight of subcontractual arrangements which closes today. It’s a ‘Yes, but’ response, as I worry it might not be enough to deal with the worst examples.

moremeansbetter.wordpress.com/2025/10/01/w...

My personal response to the OfS consultation on sub contractual partnerships – ie franchises. I’m in favour.

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 7d

There’s a very fine exposition of the regulatory complexity of bringing two degree awarding universities together here. Key question is whether a new corporate entity could be a university or whether, in reality, one university needs to dissolve and join the other?

Tom Richmond @tom-richmond.com · 7d

🚨NEW PODCAST🚨

Does the Higher Education system need more 'super universities'?

@dkernohan.bsky.social and Rachel Hewitt joined me to examine the details and implications of the new collaboration between the University of Greenwich and the University of Kent.

Listen here: insideyoured.com

Supporting Spurgeon’s College students

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 8d

Current students should be a priority (the administrators may not think so) but there’s an issue for graduates. They were admitted to a degree of Spurgeon’s College - so who has the record of that? Who verifies that award? Did the award evaporate when the college did?

The ‘Chancellor’ and ‘Vice-Chancellor’ of Spurgeon’s College. Let’s not do this again.

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 8d

Away from grants and targets, there’s some tricky HE regulation stuff still to work out. A degree-awarding provider went bust in a ‘disorderly’ way this summer. People have rallied around, but there’s not enough protection for students or for graduates.
www.baptisttimes.co.uk/Articles/724...

How students impacted by the closure of Spurgeon's College have been supported across Baptists Together

www.baptisttimes.co.uk

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Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 8d

Your reminder there’s a weekly window into scholarship on higher education from @cghe.bsky.social Today’s bleak session has been part of the Universities under Fire series. The conclusion is that the US HE system has been seriously destabilised.
www.researchcghe.org

Slide - US HE under the second Trump administration

Eve Darian-Smith’s book Politicising Higher Education - the anti democratic attach on scholars and why it matters

That thing about the High Potential Individuals Visa University list (updated 2024)

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 8d

The government has announced the extension of the High Potential Individual visa for graduates of universities in global top 100. This remains a weird thing - here’s some of the problems about the line at 50, won’t get any better at 100.

moremeansbetter.wordpress.com/2022/11/18/t...

One of the schemes in our points-based visa system is the ‘High Potential Individual’ scheme. It has a simple eligibility criterion: did you study at one of the world’s top univer…

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 9d

The prospect of the levy going from students at LSE to those at LSC would be fun to explain.

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 9d

A joined up government would use the list for the LLE, also drawn from the industrial strategy, as the priority list. You’d there’s lots more detail to come - perhaps these grants could only be used at a provider with an APP?

I have a lot of questions about the LLE

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 9d

There’s still a lot of questions about the LLE. Is ‘terms vs semesters’ a killer question? Surely students can’t still get their maintenance loans split into terms 33/33/33 and universities can’t possibly get their fees 25/25/50.
So what’s the answer from DfE?
wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/...

I have a little apology to make – although in my defence, not only does hardly anybody else write about this stuff, it’s not those who do appear to have noticed either.

wonkhe.com

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 11d

The old Spiked! ranking marked a university down for having a policy restricting hazing (the kind where people died).

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 12d

OfS degree awarding powers news: LTE Group has an order. The order for LTE Group Ltd remains on the statute book, but that company can’t use their mistakenly awarded powers as they are not an HE provider.

2025 No. 1039
EDUCATION, ENGLAND
The Power to Award Degrees etc. (LTE Group) Order 2025
Made 17th September 2025
Coming into force
Ist January 2026
The Office for Students, in exercise of the powers conferred by section 42(1) and (9) of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017(1), makes the following Order.
The Office for Students has requested advice from the relevant body regarding the quality of, and standards applied to, higher education provided by the provider, and has had regard to that advice, in accordance with section 46(1)(a) and (7) of that Act.
Citation and commencement
1. This Order may be cited as the Power to Award Degrees etc. (LTE Group) Order 2025 and shall come into force on Ist January 2026.
Authorisation to grant awards
2. LTE Group is authorised to grant awards of the kind mentioned in section 42(2)c) of the said
Act for taught awards up to and including bachelor's level for subjects relating to-
(a) design, and creative and performing arts,
(b) computing, and
(c) business and management.
3. The authorisation in article 2 is for a fixed term beginning on Ist January 2026 and expiring at the end of the day on 31st December 2029.
4. LTE Group may only grant the awards specified in article 2 to persons enrolled with it at the time they complete the course of study for which the award is granted.

College opening ‘a landmark moment’

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 12d

OfS were supposed to be doing a round of ‘boots on the ground’ assessments involving franchises, but we’ve not heard a thing about it. Better than more outcomes-based regulation…

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Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 12d

One thing government could do is give a boost to university centres. There’s a risk that regulating a few for-profit franchisees might make it harder for HE in FE. Meanwhile, university centres can reach cold spots & deliver regeneration at the same time.
www.barnsleychronicle.com/article/3325...

THE unveiling of a £16m transformation of a historic former mining college into a new ‘centre of innovation&... Local News News Barnsley South Yorkshire

www.barnsleychronicle.com

Mike Ratcliffe @mike-rat.bsky.social · 12d

I think we’ve had a firm answer to the question about whether for-profit franchising to city centre office blocks is a helpful thing since April 2024.

publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5804/cm...

Student loans issued to those studying at franchised higher education providers - Committee of Public Accounts

Report by the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, with recommendations to government

publications.parliament.uk