We are now drawing up guidance for universities and colleges setting out what your access agreements will need to cover if you wish to charge more than the basic fee in 2013-14.
This note sets out the key areas where our guidance has changed and the timetable for submitting your 2013-14 access agreements.
Key areas where our guidance has changed
Our guiding principle has been to change as little as possible from the guidance we issued last year for 2012-13 agreements.
However, there are some material differences. In particular:
- We are asking you to include part-time students in your access agreement where you intend to charge over the basic fee (for part-time entrants, the basic fee is £4,500 and the maximum fee is £6,750 in an academic year). Your agreement should cover part-time entrants in both 2012-13 and 2013-14.
- We are also asking you to incorporate initial teacher training into your main agreement, rather than as an annex.
- On collaborative outreach, we are looking for you to include considerably more detail than, in many cases, you were able to provide in your 2012-13 access agreement, and to consider how this work can be strengthened further.
- We also now require statements both on how you have consulted with students in drawing up your agreement (if you haven’t done so, you will need to say so) and on how you’ve met your responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010.
Timetable for submitting your agreement
The next steps are as follows:
- we are currently consulting with sector bodies and will publish our guidance for institutions on Thursday 19 April
- if you wish to charge more than the basic fee you will need to submit your access agreement to us by the end of May
- we will then assess access agreements and give universities our decision by the end of July, so ensuring that 2013-14 applicants know the cost of individual courses including any institutional financial support available before they start to apply this autumn.
We will keep you updated on these timings by e-mail and via the Universities and colleges section of our website.