Further education colleges are seemingly going to play a much bigger role in offering degrees in England, as Universities Minister David Willetts has announced that about half of the allocation of 20,000 lower-cost places will be in further education (FE) colleges. It has been well documented over the last few weeks that 20,000 degree places have been ring-fenced in line with the "core and margin" strategy for institutions with fees of £7,500 per year or less. The announcement will mean 143 FE colleges receive extra degree places, with Ministers' ideas being to make higher education more widely available through local FE colleges.
The announcement has said 9,500 degree places will be allocated to FE colleges starting in September this year, and with a number of places (around 1,000) being held in reserve for appeals, it means more of the 20,000 low-cost places are being awarded to colleges than to universities. Willetts went on to say that 60 colleges will receive direct funding from HEFCE for the first time. This move by the government will undoubtedly increase the pressure on university places, and coupled with the 'well documented' funding changes, it really does mean a lot of changes, with a reported 19,000 fewer university places available this autumn compared with 2011. Application figures from UCAS earlier this week showed that university courses were still going to be heavily over-subscribed this year, despite the increase in the fee cap. 35 universities or other higher education institutions will share the funding for about 9,300 of the ring-fenced places; such was the demand, HEFCE received bids for more than 36,000 places.