England’s higher education regulator is seeking sector views on how it should use the approximately £1.5 billion of public funding it distributes to institutions each year, ahead of the next spending review, with questions including whether funding should be aligned with controversial metrics on course quality.
The Office for Students has launched a call for evidence on funding it allocates through the Strategic Priorities Grant – which covers fields including high-cost subjects and additional costs in teaching students from disadvantaged backgrounds – as well as its capital funding.
The Strategic Priorities Grant is of close interest to ministers, whose guidance letters to the OfS often seek to direct the regulator on its use.
In its call for evidence, the OfS says its approach to allocating this funding has been “largely unchanged” since 2012 and in a “changed context for the sector”, it is “considering how we should use funding made available to us by government to benefit students, taxpayers and the higher education sector”.
