The Open University’s low completion rates could put it on a collision course with the English regulator, it is feared.
Figures obtained via a Freedom of Information request show that the specialist adult education provider – the UK’s largest academic institution with about 150,000 registered students – only successfully graduates just over 20 per cent of its overall intake on average.
Of students who began modules in 2013-14, 21 per cent were marked as having completed their course, 7 per cent were still studying, 22 per cent had withdrawn and 51 per cent had “lapsed”, the response showed, with similar numbers in 2012-13 and 2014-15.
