Tag: extra

  • UCL granted extra CAS numbers after exceeding allocation limit

    UCL granted extra CAS numbers after exceeding allocation limit

    Last week, The Guardian reported that hundreds of international students were contacted by UCL after the institution exceeded its allocation of Confirmations of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) – an electronic document issued by the Home Office and required for student visa applications.

    Students were told they would have to defer their studies to 2026, with many students fearing they’d be left out of pocket, having already spent significant funds on travel and accommodation.

    At the time, the university attributed the issue to an “extraordinary surge in demand”. This week, however, it has apologised for the disruption and assured affected international students that they can now begin their studies at UCL, following the allocation of additional CAS numbers.

    “We wholeheartedly apologise to all those who have been impacted by the recent uncertainty and we are incredibly grateful for their patience. Our teams are now working quickly to contact students directly with updates and support,” said a spokesperson for the university.

    “We also thank the Home Office for working swiftly to assist us in obtaining the additional CAS numbers we requested.”

    The university has offered to pay GBP £1,000 for students to make applications through UK Visa and Immigration’s ‘super priority service’.

    Our teams are now working quickly to contact students directly with updates and support
    UCL spokesperson

    Last week, UCL said it experienced “significantly more applications and acceptances of offers than anticipated” leading to it exceeding the number of CAS allocated by the Home Office. The university’s planning is based on historical data and expected trends, which take account of attrition rates and other factors, a spokesperson told The Guardian.

    UCL has a significant international student body – in 2024/5, the university had a total of 51,793 students, of which 52% were from overseas.

    The institution is expected to be one of the hardest hit institutions by the UK government’s proposed levy on higher education, which could see universities taxed on the income they make from international student fees.

    According to recent analysis from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), the greatest financial losses are expected to fall on major metropolitan universities with high proportions of international students. UCL – which derives 79% of its tuition fee income from non-UK students – could face losses of up to £42 million.

     

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  • DfE gets over £13.5billion extra for 2020/21 loan impairments

    DfE gets over £13.5billion extra for 2020/21 loan impairments

    The UK government published its “supplementary estimates” for 2020/21 yesterday. These allocate additional budgetary resources to departments.

    Education has been given an extra £13.531 billion to cover the estimated losses on student loans issued in the year (April 2020-March 2021) and the likely downwards revisions to the value of already existing loans. The department had an original allowance of roughly £4billion, but was determined by the last comprehensive spending review and had not been revised since Theresa May’s decision to increase the loan repayment threshold in 2017.

    Last year, an additional £12billion was granted and most was used. (These allocations are not additional cash, but the formal recognition that the cash issued in the form of loans is going to generate much lower returns than originally anticipated).

    The estimated non-repayment on new loans was thought to be in the region of 55%. That is, for every £ loaned, the treasury expected the equivalent of c. 45p in return: in 2019/20, £17.6billion of new loans were issued, but only around £8billion in net present value is projected to be repaid. (Note that this percentage figure – “the RAB” – is often confused with a measure of how many borrowers ultimately clear their loan balances, i.e. those who repay the equivalent of 100p or more).

    When the new higher fees came in, the loss on loans was projected to be in the region of 30p in the £. That is, 70p would be repaid. A raft of policy changes and modelling errors along with the impact of austerity on graduate earnings has dramatically increased the costs; recent accounting changes have meant that those costs now show up in the headline figures that count. (The loan scheme was never designed to be self-financing, but no one set out to develop a scheme with this current level of subsidy. The £4billion in the original budget for 2020/21 reflects the much earlier aim of “incentivising” the department responsible for loans to get the estimated non-repayment closer to 30-35%).

    The pandemic has made things a lot worse for earnings and livelihoods. But the HE sector has in recent months also been positioned to take a hit when the chancellor looks to review spending in the Autumn. The obvious place to look is initial outlay and so I would expect to a clamp down on undergraduate fee levels (without any offsetting increase in tuition grant).


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