Source: Alamy

Empty seat shuffle: places were taken from universities and colleges to hand out to lower-cost institutions, but many went unfilled

A key government policy designed to cut tuition fees has been labelled a failure after it emerged that nearly half the places reallocated to lower-cost universities went unfilled.

Data revealing a lack of student demand for low-cost places allocated under the ¡°core-and-margin¡± system also show that further education colleges had more success than universities in filling the places - running contrary to the predictions of some in higher education.

For 2012-13, higher education providers in England with an average fee of ?7,500 or less were allocated 20,000 places - a so-called ¡°margin¡± created by top-slicing a portion of places from institutions. The Higher Education Funding Council for England invited bids for the places and distributed them on the basis of ¡°quality, demand and cost¡±.

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Of the 20,000 margin places, 7,000 went unfilled, according to government figures released to Shabana Mahmood, Labour¡¯s shadow universities and science minister, in answer to a written parliamentary question.

Of the 9,600 places awarded to universities, 4,200 were estimated to have been left unfilled.

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Colleges were allocated 10,400 places but failed to fill 2,800.

The margin system was one part of the government¡¯s two-pronged plan to introduce competition into higher education. The other was the uncapping of recruitment on students who achieve AAB grades or higher at A level (a threshold that will fall to ABB in 2013-14).

However, AAB has been blamed for unfilled places at Russell Group universities after a drop in the number of students achieving top grades.

Overall, there were 51,000 fewer acceptances at English institutions in the 2012-13 academic year compared with 2011-12, a 13 per cent decline, according to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service.

Bahram Bekhradnia, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, described the margin figures as ¡°disturbing¡±. The government had ¡°allocated places from universities that might be perfectly popular and in demand to universities and colleges that were not in demand¡±, purely on the basis of price, he said.

A BIS spokeswoman said that the margin provided ¡°a greater number of lower-cost, high-quality places¡± and stressed that 2012-13 had been ¡°an unusual year, with unfilled places in many parts of the sector¡±.

¡®Rum way of saving money¡¯

The written answer explains the unfilled places by pointing out that institutions were expected ¡°to recruit less than their allocation to compensate for over-recruitment in previous years¡±.

Mr Bekhradnia described this explanation as ¡°extraordinary¡±.

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¡°It suggests that [places] were deliberately given to institutions knowing that they wouldn¡¯t be filled,¡± he said, adding that this was a ¡°pretty rum way of saving money¡±.

The average tuition fee is set to rise from ?8,5 in 2012-13 to ?8,615 in 2013-14, although this increase is below the rate of inflation.

A Hefce spokeswoman argued that 2012-13 had been an ¡°untypical¡± year for recruitment, and that institutions would have a chance to fill their margin places in 2013-14.

Ms Mahmood said that the margin policy ¡°made a mockery¡± of the government¡¯s stated aim: putting students at the heart of the system.

Places went unfilled ¡°because the government grossly overestimated demand for the margin¡±, she argued.

The policy had encouraged poorer students to enter cheaper courses where less was spent on their teaching, ¡°a policy that could only serve to further entrench educational inequality¡±, she added.

For 2013-14, the coalition has cut the number of new margin places to be redistributed to 5,000, with a ¡°sizeable minority¡± going to institutions charging between ?7,500 and ?8,250, although places allocated in 2012-13 will be repeated to bed in the changes.

Nick Davy, higher education policy manager at the Association of Colleges, said he was ¡°pretty pleased¡± with the number of unfilled places at colleges given the ¡°difficult trading conditions¡± in 2012-13.

The margin policy had been a ¡°success¡± for the further education sector because it had ¡°clearly supported expansion¡± in higher education numbers, although the growth was ¡°probably not as much as we would have wanted¡±, he said.

The association estimated that there were roughly 7 per cent more higher education students in further education colleges this year compared with last, Mr Davy added.

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david.matthews@tsleducation.com