There has been a significant growth in private higher education, both in the UK and worldwide in recent years. These private providers generally admit students who are not qualified for admission to publicly-funded universities and colleges and those for whom there are no places. Some are selective. They generally have a strong focus on teaching. Four of the UK’s private providers – the College of Law, BPP, Ashridge Business School and the ifs School of Finance – now have degree-awarding powers, and the BPP College of Professional Studies secured the right in July 2010 to use the title BPP University College, the first private provider to secure this status for 34 years.
It was announced on 17 April 2012 that the College of Law (a charity with a Royal Charter, having degree-awarding powers) had been sold to a private equity firm, one of the first purchases of an HEI since the Coalition Government began encouraging private investment in the sector.
The Coalition Government has indicated that it is likely that private HE will continue to expand. The outcomes of the Browne Review and the cuts in public funding for higher education mean that governors will increasingly have to take into account the private sector both in their deliberations on fee-setting and strategy in general.
A comprehensive report on private higher education, commissioned by Universities UK, The Growth of Private and for-Profit Higher Education Providers in the UK, provides an overview of the various types of private institutions and sets out a number of important policy questions. In a first feature the Times Higher Education focuses particularly on the challenges for the regulatory system of the potential further development of private higher education. The risks involved in collaborating with private providers are exemplified in the closure of a private institution in 2010 leaving many students on programmes validated by the University of Portsmouth facing financial losses as well as the loss of their courses. A second THE article addresses various aspects of private provision, in particular regulatory and financial issues.
Professor Roger Brown has prepared a report for the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), drawing on experience in the USA, not only in relation to privately provided higher education, but also more broadly on issues in the USA which might be of interest in relation to current developments in the UK. Another report, Private Providers in UK Higher Education: Some Policy Options by Professor Robin Middlehurst and John Fielden, reviews some of the implications of the growth in private higher education, in particular relating to the regulatory environment. Some of the themes in this report, in particular partnerships between publicly funded and private providers, are developed in an article in Perspectives the journal of the AUA in April 2011.
Powerpoint presentation: The Rise of the Private Provider and What can be Learned, Professor Aldwyn Cooper, Principal and Chief Executive, Regents College.