Students: Per-capita Costs

Education and Skills written question – answered at on 20 February 2007.

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Photo of Boris Johnson Boris Johnson Shadow Minister (Higher Education), Education, Shadow Minister (Business, Innovation and Skills)

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the average marginal cost was of (a) part-time and (b) full-time students of higher education programmes for (i) HEFCE and (ii) the LSC in each academic year between 1996-97 and 2006-07.

Photo of Bill Rammell Bill Rammell Minister of State (Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education), Department for Education and Skills

The funding allocated by (i) the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA), and (ii) the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) is in the following tables.

The two councils are funded differently reflecting their institutions' needs and this is reflected in the information available. Figures disaggregated by part-time and full-time students are not available. Similarly, for the LSC, it is not possible to disaggregate funding of higher education programmes from that for other provision.

(i) The funding per full-time equivalent higher education student studying at English institutions funded by HEFCE/TDA is shown in the table; in addition to these totals, institutions have been free from September 2006 to charge up to £3,000 for full-time home and EU undergraduates, with the Government not students meeting the up front costs.

£
Real terms (2004-05 prices)( 1) Total funding per planned student Funding per planned student
1996-97 5,530
1997-98 5,380
1998-99 5,380
1999-2000 5,400
2000-01 5,390
2001-02 5,400
2002-03 5,400
2003-04 5,500
2004-05 5,530
2005-06(2) 5,670 4,820
2006-07 4,880
(1) All figures are at 2004-05 prices using the March 2006 GDP deflators, rounded to the nearest £10, and consistent with the plans set out in the Department's 2006 Annual Report.

(2) In 2005-06, the difference between the two series is due to two factors:

(a) excluding tuition fee income which accounts for about £700 (the difference is less than the standard fee as figures are on an full-time equivalent basis); and

(b) the move to the whole-year count method which accounts for the residual.

These funds include recurrent resources for teaching and research provided to the HEFCE and the TDA. The total funding per planned student series also includes fee income. With the introduction of variable fees in 2006, there is no longer a fixed fee paid for each student, and so a new measure 'funding per planned student' is now used, although most higher education institutions are charging £3,000. All figures exclude expenditure on student support costs.

The coverage of these figures is home (i.e. UK) and EU domiciled students studying at higher education institutions (HEIs) and further education colleges (FECs) in England.

It is not possible to disaggregate these figures by full- and part-time students because the Department delegates funds to HEFCE and IDA with total expected full time equivalent (FTE) student numbers. It should be noted however that part-time students funded via HEFCE attract a 10 per cent. premium on the rate for FTE students.

(ii) The figures for unit funding from LSC are not available on a basis consistent with those from HEFCE. The funding per Learning Aim at Level 4 and above funded by the LSC is shown in the table; figures prior to 2004/05 are not available.

Real terms (2004-05 prices)( 1) Funding per learning aim per annum (£)
2004/05 490
2005/06 530
(1) All figures are at 2004-05 prices using the March 2006 GDP deflators, rounded to the nearest £10.

These figures are derived by LSC from actual funding made available in the corresponding academic year divided by the number of learning aims that LSC have supported.

These two sets of figures are not comparable, in particular because LSC figures are per learning aim rather than per FTE. For example a learner funded by the LSC is more likely to be studying part-time and could be pursuing a number of learning aims in parallel. Figures are not available on a consistent basis.

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