Tag: Fee

  • AAUP, Other Unions Sue Trump Admin Over H-1B Fee

    AAUP, Other Unions Sue Trump Admin Over H-1B Fee

    A slew of unions, including three that represent university faculty and staff, are suing the Trump administration over its proposed $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas, The New York Times reported.

    The plaintiffs, which include the American Association of University Professors, UAW International and UAW Local 481, allege in the lawsuit that numerous researchers and academics will lose their jobs as a result of their institutions not being able to afford the new fee. (An H-1B visa previously cost $2,000 to $5,000.) Universities, along with national labs and nonprofit research institutions, were also exempt from the annual cap on the number of new visas, and it’s unclear whether the new fee will apply to higher ed.

    The New York Times reported that this lawsuit “appears to be the first major challenge to the new fee.”

    The fee, the complaint states, “will result in significant and potentially catastrophic setbacks to research that benefits the American public and ensures the United States remains a leading source of innovation and expertise. For example, the fee will likely result in sharp cutbacks in the employment of highly talented foreign workers and severe setbacks for university research, graduate programs, and clinical care, compounding an anticipated shortfall of 5.3 million skilled workers over the next decade.”

    The lawsuit highlights several specific examples of researchers whose work would be interrupted by this change, including an unnamed plaintiff who studies conditions and diseases that cause blindness.

    “Her departure will set back the crucial research she is conducting, disrupting the lab’s ongoing work and ability to secure future research funding, preventing her department from getting any future funding through her, and potentially delaying the availability of treatment for the conditions that are the focus of her research,” it states.

    The plaintiffs note in the lawsuit that the $100,000 fee “applies even where workers are already lawfully present in the United States under, for example, a student visa or another immigration status, and are seeking to change to H-1B status.”

    They argue in part that the president does not have the statutory authority to increase the fee for H-1B visas. They are asking the judge to nullify the $100,000 fee and allow H-1B visas to be processed as they were previously.

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  • UK’s international fee levy could slash enrolments by over 77k

    UK’s international fee levy could slash enrolments by over 77k

    Some 16,100 international students could be deterred from studying in the UK in the first year universities are levied 6% of all their international student fees, comes the stark warning from a new report from the think tank Public First.

    Should the government make good on the proposal – outlined in the immigration white paper earlier this year – this figure could rocket to more than 77,000 students in the first five years of its implementation, the report predicts.

    The government expects universities to pass the increased costs onto international students themselves by raising fees. But Public First cautioned that such a move would have catastrophic consequences by driving international students away, hitting the UK’s economy by £2.2 billion over five years and leading to a reduction of 135,000 university places for domestic students.

    The think tank projected that a 6.38% international student fee increase – necessary for universities to pass on the entire cost of the levy – would have a far greater impact on students’ decision to study in the UK than the government has anticipated.

    This is because the government’s forecasts were based on data for EU students. However, Public First noted that price elasticity of demand for non-EU students is greater than their EU counterparts – meaning they would be more likely to be look elsewhere if they found UK fees too expensive.

    Jonathan Simons, partner at Public First and author of the report, noted that the projected impact of the levy “is much more severe than had been predicted previously”.

    It is not widely understood just how much our economy is supported by international students and it’s really crucial that any policy that could affect international student numbers is considered through this lens

    Jonathan Simons, Public First

    “This, of course, will hit our universities, around 40% of whom are already in deficit, and that could lead to a further loss of jobs, a loss of university places for UK students and a loss of vital research investment,” he added.

    “Perhaps even more significant, though, is the hit an international student levy could cause to local, regional and national economies across the UK. It is not widely understood just how much our economy is supported by international students and it’s really crucial that any policy that could affect international student numbers is considered through this lens.”

    Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership and chair of the Growing Together Alliance, said that the levy was opposed by all of England’s major regional employer organisations “because the resulting decline in international students would be hugely damaging to all the regions of the country”.

    “The Chancellor should take note of the economic damage of this policy which undermines a critical UK export and we have requested an urgent meeting to raise our concerns,” he said.

    The proposed levy has been widely criticised by higher education institutions.

    Last month, a HEPI analysis predicted that UK universities could take a £621m hit if the policy goes ahead, with those situated in big metropolitan cities set to be the worst affected.

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  • UA chair seeks $770m for course fee cuts – Campus Review

    UA chair seeks $770m for course fee cuts – Campus Review

    The first public speech of the new Universities Australia (UA) chair Carolyn Evans called on taxpayers to chip in $770 million a year to restructure university course fees.

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  • NIH Publisher Fee Cap Plan “Not Comprehensive Enough”

    NIH Publisher Fee Cap Plan “Not Comprehensive Enough”

    Members of the public have until Sept. 15 to weigh in on the National Institutes of Health’s plan to curb how much taxpayer money goes to journals to publish some federally funded research.

    The agency, which is the nation’s largest funder of biomedical research, wants to do that by capping—or potentially disallowing—the amount of money it gives to NIH-funded researchers who want to make their work publicly accessible by paying publishers article processing charges. A July 30 request for information memo outlined five potential options, which the NIH says are all aimed at balancing the “feasibility of providing research results with maximizing the use of taxpayer funds to support research.”

    Jay Bhattacharya, director of the NIH, has said the policy could be a mechanism for ending what he sees as the “perverse incentives” driving the $19 billion for-profit academic publishing industry and making it “much harder for a small number of scientific elite to say what’s true and false.”

    But open-information advocates and experts who have reviewed the NIH’s proposed plans for capping the amount it will pay for article processing charges said it likely won’t reform academia’s incentive structure or rein in publishers, including some that charge academic researchers as much as $12,690 per article to make their work freely accessible to the public and more likely to get cited.

    “It is important to keep in mind that any cap is a cap on the amount that can be budgeted to be paid from a grant. It is not a cap on what publishers can charge. What publishers charge may be influenced by a budget cap, but many other factors will also impact on that,” said Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, a professor and coordinator for research professional development at the University of Illinois library. “It is more likely that a budget cap causes publishers that charge less to raise their fees—the ceiling will become the floor—than it is that publishers charging more will lower their fees.”

    The proposal, which if adopted would go into effect Jan. 1, 2026, is aimed at addressing one of the many criticisms the Trump administration has made about federally funded academic research and the journals that publish the results.

    In May, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH, said he was considering preventing federally funded scientists from publishing in leading medical journals and launching in-house journals instead, claiming without evidence that pharmaceutical companies control the journals.

    Then, in July, the NIH sped up the implementation of a Biden-era rule requiring federally funded researchers to immediately make their research findings publicly accessible. And earlier this month, Bhattacharya criticized academia’s “publish or perish culture” in a statement about the NIH’s strategy for advancing its mission.

    “It favors the promotion of only favorable results, and replication work is little valued or rewarded,” he wrote. “We are exploring various mechanisms to support scientists focused on replication work, to publish negative findings, and to elevate replication research.”

    Given all of that context, the publisher fee cap plan is “more or less a warning shot across the bow that the NIH is serious about scholarly communication reform,” said Chris Marcum, who was assistant director for open science and data policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Biden administration. “The administration believes there’s massive market concentration held by just a few scholarly publishers, and they’re no longer going to subsidize the surplus revenues of those journals.”

    While the Trump administration is far from alone in its criticism of big academic publishers—just six companies own 53 percent of academic journals—which rely on often-unpaid researchers and peer reviewers, Marcum said that even if the NIH adopted all five of the options it outlined to cap publisher fees, “it’s not comprehensive enough” to meet their stated goals.

    “They could eliminate APCs and fix pricing, but the extremely useful tool that they have is influence over the universities,” he added.

    For example, one of the options in the NIH’s proposal would increase limits on APCs if the journal paid peer reviewers, but Marcum said he’s concerned that could result in some peer reviewers trying to game the system to enrich themselves. Instead, he said, “if the NIH really wants to move the needle on this, they should think about other ways to compensate reviewers.” Some of those ideas could include giving peer reviewers credit toward their grant applications, including peer review as part of grant work or requiring universities that apply for NIH grants to include considerations for their researchers to engage in peer review.

    Heather Joseph, executive director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, said that though the NIH “can’t single-handedly reform the global system of academic research incentives, they can play a leadership role.”

    But capping APCs isn’t the only—or most effective—option to make that happen.

    “Rather than just limiting the amount of money that the NIH provides researchers to publish in a journal, it could say, ‘If you choose not to publish in a journal and do something else, we’ll provide money to do that,’ and support other mechanisms that allow researchers to break that incentive cycle,” Joseph said. “The NIH could reward them for communicating their findings early and often, making the global conversation of science dynamic in real time so that people can really benefit from it.”

    The publishing industry is also not keen on the NIH’s attempt to control article processing charges.

    A “free and competitive scholarly marketplace, including not-for-profit societies and other publishers, remains the most effective means of sustaining this vital sector, and bolstering our nation’s leadership position in the sciences,” Carl Maxwell, senior vice president for public policy for the Association of American Publishers, which has opposed open access expansion, wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed.

    “Models are now changing in the face of open access mandates, and AAP is analyzing the options put forth by NIH to identify the plan that will provide authors with maximum freedom to choose how to publish and communicate their work, while at the same time supporting the indispensable publication processes that deliver best-in-class, peer-reviewed articles.”

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  • London Mayor slams proposed international tuition fee levy

    London Mayor slams proposed international tuition fee levy

    In a keynote address earlier this week at Imperial Global Ghana – Imperial College London’s overseas branch campus in Accra – Sadiq Khan warned that proposals for a new levy on international university fees would hit the UK’s finances hard, describing the policy as “an act of immense economic self-harm”.

    The UK government is currently considering a new levy on income that English universities generate from international students as part of its immigration whitepaper, which could not only put students off coming  from overseas but also create a substantial extra financial burden for already stretched universities.

    International students contribute about £12.5 billion to London, and another £55bn to the national economy every year, Khan pointed out. For this reason, the government should not make it difficult for these students to study in the UK, Khan said at the event – which formed part of his trade mission to Ghana.

    With 5% of students in London’s higher education institutions coming from Africa, Khan stressed the need to ensure that international students are not frustrated. 

    “Closing our economy to global talent would be an act of immense economic self-harm. One that would slow down growth and leave working people in Britain worse off than before. At a time when President Trump is attacking international students, we should be welcoming them,” he added.

    Khan said the international students also bring a longer-term labour market value, as many stay after their studies to work in key economic sectors from tech and AI to finance and creative industries. For this reason, he disagreed with the view that, “we should pull up the drawbridge to international students or punish universities that choose to welcome people from around the world”.

    On Imperial College opening up a hub in Ghana, he said London is ready to contribute to the development effort of Ghana, “not as a patron, but as a partner. In a genuinely reciprocal relationship that brings benefits to us both”.

    President Trump is attacking international students, we should be welcoming them
    Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London

    The vice-chancellor of the University of Ghana, Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, said the university is committed to providing to its  students with a transformative experience that goes beyond the classroom to nurture innovation, leadership and practical problem solving, adding that “this commitment is rooted in our strategic plan, which prioritises student success, impactful research and strategic partners”.

    “One such partnership, rich in promise and results, is with Imperial College London. What began as a collaboration between two researchers has evolved into a university-wide alliance, advancing work in climate change, diagnostics, and entrepreneurship. It is a powerful model of what mutual trust and shared purpose can achieve,” Amfo added.

    She said the Student Venture Support Programme has become the flagship agenda of the partnership which was launched in 2022 with the Imperial College and is  equipping students with skills, mentoring and funding to turn ideas into viable ventures. 

    To date, it has supported over 400 students and more than 115 startups, spanning four universities across Ghana.

    Despite Khan’s strong opposition to the levy, it looks likely to go ahead.

    At last week’s BUILA conference, skills minister Jacqui Smith doubled down on the need for the levy, saying it would reinforce public confidence in the UK’s international education sector.

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  • How to design an international student tuition fee levy

    How to design an international student tuition fee levy

    “The Government will explore introducing a levy on higher education provider income from international students, to be reinvested into the higher education and skills system. Further details will be set out in the Autumn Budget.”

    35 words that have put the sector into a spin, spun out tens of thousands of words of analysis and rebuttal, and set into motion a shared panic that the government is not only going to reduce the number of international students but tax the students that universities manage to recruit.

    Design

    The only things that we know about the levy is that the government has used a six per cent tax on international fees as an “illustrative example” in its technical annex, the government assumes this cost would be passed on to international students, and that passing on these costs will depress international student numbers by around 7,000. In terms of the levy design there is the promise that the money will be ringfenced for higher education and skills but which parts and how is not defined. It is of course also not guaranteed.

    The sector’s response has been to point out that reducing the number of international students and devaluing the unit of resource they bring with them will put additional financial pressure on universities. The impact will also be uneven with the largest recruiters of international students paying the highest levy.

    The government has made a hugely consequential policy signal with no details, scant impact assessment, and no analysis of the consequences. However, if a levy of some form is going to happen the sector should think carefully about which kinds of levy they believe would be preferable. Not all levies are built equally.

    Australia

    The idea for a levy seems to have come from the Australian Universities Accord. The UK government does not seem to have noticed that the idea was heavily edited and caveated in the final report but in the interim report it was noted that:

    The Review notes various submissions support establishing a specific fund that could be used for future infrastructure needs, as well other national priorities. This could include consideration of a levy on international student fee income. The use of this revenue for sectoral-wide priorities could reflect the collaborative nature of the sector in building a strong and enduring system. The Review notes further examination is required, including consideration of some level of co-investment from governments.

    There is a little bit more detail here but not much. Like the UK version the fund would be hypothecated toward higher education and used to fund things on a system wide basis. The politics on the face of it appear progressive that the institutions that benefit most from private capital, the flow of international students, pay a proportion of it back to fund public goods in the wider higher education system. The less progressive element is that international students pay once to their institution, they would then pay a levy which their provider would pass on to them in increased fees, and they then prop up an education system of a nation in which they are not permanently resident.

    The University of Melbourne did some follow up work looking at the implications of such a levy. Some of the issues they picked up are whether this would be a levy on all international students in all kinds of education, whether it is reasonable to distribute funding from high income to low income institutions, whether the idea of a levy in and of itself would dampen demand, and whether the impact of taxing income from individual providers is more harmful than the collective benefits they may receive from a shared fund.

    Depending how the government chooses to apply its levy we would expect to see very different results. An Australian model which redistributes funding from the wealthiest institution to the least wealthy would have a very different set of consequences to a levy which took a six per cent flat tax and put it into a general fund for infrastructure. It feels odd within a market based higher education system to make one provider dependent on the success of another. It also feels odd to make international students who are studying at a specific institution responsible for the health of the wider sector.

    Some would see an intra-university levy as a recognition that the success of the system is the success of each provider. Some would see it as an unjustifiable tax on the most financially successful institutions.

    New Zealand

    Australia’s Antipodean partner already has a form of student levy.

    New Zealand’s Export Education Levy is charged as a proportion of the fee international fee-paying students pay to their providers. Depending on the kind of institution this is charged at between .5 per cent and .89 per cent of tuition fees.

    The levy has a direct relationship between funders and beneficiaries. Although it is a tax on learners, and by extension a tax on providers, the funding is used for the development of the export education sector, a recovery scheme should a provider be unable to continue teaching, the administration of the international element of The Education (Pastoral Care of Tertiary and InternationalLearners) Code of Practice 2021 (this includes a range of safety, wellbeing and advice support), and the funding of the International Student Contract Dispute Resolution Scheme (a scheme for students to resolve disputes with their providers on contracts and financial issues.)

    This system has been in place with some variations and the occasional suspension since 2002. The international education system is much smaller in New Zealand than the UK and the amount of funding the levy raises is modest at close to three million dollars in 2022/23. The model in operation here is a relatively small tax to fund things which providers have a shared interest in. It’s not a direct cash transfer between providers but a collective pot to reinvest into the economic commodity of international education. The scheme was suspended during COVID-19 as a measure to support the sector, so its financial impacts are clearly not negligible, but post COVID-19 international enrolments are recovering strongly. Whether they would have recovered even more strongly without a levy is impossible to know.

    This is a light-touch, shared endeavour, we all should have some investment in international education, kind of a levy and it is not the only levy New Zealand has.

    The Student Service Levy is a fee applied to all student fees to fund non-academic services. The University of Auckland surveys students every year on what they would like their fees to be spent on and in 2024, in descending order by amount, funding was spent on sports, recreation and cultural activities, counselling services and pastoral care, health services, child care services, clubs and societies, careers advice, legal advice, financial advice, and media.

    This is a general levy but the principle has broader applications. It would be entirely possible to levy international student fees to pay for non-academic services. For example, university access budgets are effectively paid for by a levy on fees. This system seems fairer in some ways than a general levy. The place where a student studies is the primary beneficiary of their fees. From a policy perspective it would allow the government to move institutional behaviour toward things they care about by stipulating what the fee could be spent on. However, given that international student fees subsidy much of university work already it would again feel like they are paying twice. Additionally, if providers didn’t have to redistribute their funding on a national basis the providers with the most international students would be able to spend the most on non-academic elements.

    Where else

    It is also worth stating the government’s proposed levy would not function like the Apprenticeship Levy. The Apprenticeship Levy is a tax on employer’s payroll but employers are able to access the funds they contribute to spend on apprenticeships with any underspend clawed back by the government. Plainly, if government allowed providers to access the fees they contribute to the levy for the education of their own students there would be no point in having a levy in the first place beyond giving universities the political coverage to raise fees. Presumably, not an outcome the government is intending.

    The argument against a levy of international student fees will dominate the sector for months to come. Should a levy come to pass universities would be well disposed to think of which kinds of levy they might prefer. A model which redistributes funding across providers and if so which providers and for what projects. A model which internally redistributes funding toward student support. Or, likely the least popular, a model which allows the government to reinvest the funding broadly and perhaps outside of higher education.

    In making the case of the harm a levy could cause the sector may also win over more sympathy if it can explain which kinds of levies in which places have what kinds of effects depending on how they are applied. A levy may generally be a bad idea but some versions are much more harmful than others.

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  • Plotting the impact of an international fee levy

    Plotting the impact of an international fee levy

    There’s not many in the higher education sector that would have welcomed any part of the recent immigration white paper.

    The reduction in the graduate route time limit would have been difficult enough. The BCA changes to duties on providers in order to sponsor international students will cause many problems. The possibility of financial penalties linked to asylum claims for those on student visas was as unexpected as it is problematic.

    But it is the levy that has really attracted the ire of UK higher education.

    The best form of defence

    On one level it is simply a tax – on the income from international student fees, which is one of a vanishingly few places from which universities can cross-subsidise loss-making activity like research and teaching UK-domiciled students.

    Yes, the funds raised are promised variously to “skills and higher education” or just “skills”, and the suggestion seems to be that the costs will be passed on entirely to international students via rises in tuition fees. There’s not any real information on the assumptions underpinning this position, or credible calculations by which the proportion of students that may be deterred by these rises and other measures has been estimated.

    But details are still scant – the government has, after all, only promised to “explore” the introduction of a levy – and used the idea of a six per cent levy on international tuition fees as an “illustrative example”. We have to look forward to the Autumn statement (not even the skills white paper – remember joined-up, mission-led, government?) for more – and do recall that the white paper is a consultation and responses need to be made in order to finesse the policy.

    Thinking about impact

    There’s no reliable way to assess the impact of this policy with so little information, but we do know a lot about the exposure of each university to the international market.

    For starters here’s a summary of provider income from overseas fees since 2016–17 – both for individual providers and (via the filters) for the sector as a whole.

    [Full screen]

    The story has been one of growth pretty much anywhere you care to look – with only limited evidence of a cooling off in the most recent year of data. Some institutions have trebled their income from this source over the eight years of available data, with particular growth in postgraduate taught provision.

    In considering the financial impact of a potential levy I have used the most recent (2023–24) year of financial data – showing the total non-UK fee income on the vertical axis and the proportion of total income represented by the value of the levy on the horizontal. By default I have modelled a levy of six per cent (you can use the filter to consider other levels).

    [Full screen]

    Who’s up, who’s down?

    In the majority of large universities the cost of levy is equivalent to around two per cent of total income. In the main it is the Russell Group that sees substantial income from international fees – the small number of exceptions (most notably the University of Hertfordshire and the University of the Arts London) would see a levy impact of closer to three per cent of total income.

    What we can’t realistically model is university pricing behavior and the impact on recruitment. Universities generally charge what the market will stand for international courses – and this value is generally higher for providers that are better known from popular league tables.

    Subject areas and qualifications also have an impact (the cost of an MBA, for example, may be higher than a taught creative arts masters – a year of postgraduate study may cost more than a year of an undergraduate course), as does the country from which students are arriving (China may be charged more than India, for example).

    Some better off universities in the middle of the market may choose to swallow more of the cost of the levy in order to increase their competitiveness for applicants making decisions on price – this would put pressure on the currently cheaper end of the market to follow suit as well as direct competitors, and may lower the overall floor price for particular providers (though, to be fair, private providers are still better positioned to undercut should they have access to funds from investment or other parts of the business).

    There is an obvious impact on the quality of the provision if providers do cut the amount of fee income – and this as well could have an impact on the attractiveness of the whole sector. For more hands-on courses in technical or creative subjects, provision may become unviable overall – surrendering the soft power of influence in these fields.

    A starting point

    It’s not often that we see a policy proposal on university funding launched with so little information. Generations of politicians have learned that university funding policy changes are the equivalent of poking a wasps nest with a sharp stick – it may be something that needs doing but the short term pain and noise is massive.

    It could be that it is a deliberate policy to let the sector (and associated commentariat) go crazy for a month or so while a plan is developed to avoid the less desirable (for ministers) consequences. But the idea that international students will gladly pay more to support an underfunded sector is one that has been at the heart of university activity for decades – the only real change here is that the government feels it can put some of the profits to better use than some of our larger and better-known providers.

    In all of this there appears to have been little consideration of the fairness of putting extra costs onto the fees of international students – particularly where they personally don’t see any value from their additional spend. But this has been an issue for a good few years, and it seems to have taken the possibility of a tariff (which could be considered unfair to cash-strapped universities too) to drive this problem further up the sector’s agenda.

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  • Labor hikes visa application fee to $2000, Dutton’s is $2500+ – Campus Review

    Labor hikes visa application fee to $2000, Dutton’s is $2500+ – Campus Review

    Labor will cut back on outside consultants and hike visa fees for foreign students to cover the extra cost of spending in the March budget.

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  • How colleges can improve financial transparency in fee payments

    How colleges can improve financial transparency in fee payments

    Effective higher education fee management maximizes revenue, reduces losses, and builds confidence with students and parents. However, 65% of institutions lose money owing to obsolete, manual processes (EDUFinance 2024). This is where student fees collection software shines.

    Let’s look at 10 data-driven strategies to improve student fee collection software for transparency and efficiency.

     

    Why Modern Student Fees Collection Software Matters

    Did you know 37% of college finance teams track fees using spreadsheets, which can lead to errors and miscalculations (Campus Finance Survey, 2024)? Student finance cloud technologies automate complex operations, reduce manual errors, and offer a transparent, real-time financial environment.

     

     

    How colleges can improve financial transparency in fee payments? 10 proven ways. 

     

    1. One seamless student registration and data sync

    Create comprehensive student profiles automatically matched with student information systems (SIS) including demographic data, course information, and financial details. Institutions running linked data systems report 23% faster fee processing.

     

    2. Clearly structured fees

    Fee breakdowns cause 48% of parents to argue (EdTech Insights, 2023). Flexible fees per department, course, or service offer upfront transparency and easier payments.

     

    3. Channel-wide fee collection automation

    Students prefer mobile payments 72% (Higher Ed Payment Trends, 2024). Make websites, mobile apps, and self-service portals accept rapid payments. Automated schools collected fees 27% faster and missed 15% fewer.

     

    4. Fine automation, absenteeism tracking

    Establish absenteeism and late payment penalties. Automation has reduced fee defaulters by 19% and ensures regular sanctions without manual follow-up.

     

    5. Role-based security to protect finances

    Role-based access control is non-negotiable even if 63% of higher education institutions report financial intrusions (EduCyberReport, 2024). Minimizing fraud and mistakes, only authorised staff should handle fee data.

     

    6. Parent portals for real-time fee visibility

    Parents demand more financial participation in their children’s education (82%, ParentPulse Survey, 2024). Parents receive transparent information regarding dues, invoices, and payment schedules via a portal, decreasing late payments.

     

    7. Automatic fee calculations for billing free of errors

    Errors in manual fee computation affect institutions’ annual income up to 4%. Calculate fees automatically using pre-defined criteria to guarantee correct, current billing for every student.

     

    8. Waivers, fee concessions, and flexible payment options

    Offer waivers, discounts, and flexible payment arrangements without any confusion on the back end. Supporting financially challenged students with structured payment plans resulted in 12% higher retention rates for colleges that have implemented this approach.

     

    9. Automatic fee reminders for on-time payments

    According to EduFinance Insights (2024), overlooked reminders account for 43% of late payments. Send automated fee reminders via email, SMS, and push notifications to significantly reduce the number of late payments.

     

    10. Real time financial transparency reports

    Access transaction history, income breakdowns, and outstanding amounts instantly. Real-time reporting improved financial forecasting and reconciliation for 89% of finance directors.

     

    The Bottom Line: Future-Proof Your Fee Management with Creatrix Campus

    Why let outdated processes drain your institution’s revenue? With Creatrix Campus Fee Management Software, higher education institutions can achieve:

    • Faster fee collection with automation and mobile payments
    • Enhanced financial transparency for students, parents, and administrators
    • Stronger security with role-based access and encrypted data
    • Real-time insights for smarter, data-driven financial decisions

    Ready to transform your fee collection process? Let Creatrix Campus help you boost efficiency, ensure transparency, and future-proof your institution’s financial operations.

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  • When tuition fee payments are suspended, what happens to students left behind?

    When tuition fee payments are suspended, what happens to students left behind?

    Whilst there may be good reasons for suspending tuition fee payments to “safeguard public funding and ensure students’ interests are protected”, decisions taken to safeguard the public purse often risk overlooking the individual students who are left behind.

    In April 2024 the Office for Students (OfS) opened an investigation in relation to Applied Business Academy (ABA) to consider whether it had complied with requirements to provide accurate information about its students, and whether it had effective management and governance arrangements in place.

    In September 2024, the Department for Education (DfE) instructed the Student Loans Company to suspend all tuition fee payments to ABA, until OfS had completed its investigation. On 27 September, ABA asked the OfS to remove it from the Register because it was no longer able to provide higher education. A decision to permanently close ABA was made on 22 October 2024 and liquidators were appointed.

    On 2 April 2025 OfS published a summary of its investigation. We understand around 300 current and prospective students were on courses partnered with universities who supported students through the closure and offered who were offered individual guidance sessions setting out options which included transfer to complete study as per the student protection plans.

    The other group of students

    However, there were also students who were studying for a Level 5 Diploma in Education and Training (DET) awarded by City and Guilds and some awarded by Organisation for Hospitality and Tourism Management (OTHM) – both at the time eligible for student loan finance. According to the OfS investigation this number looks to be just over 2,000.

    The route to raise complaints and seek redress for these students is different to the route for students on courses partnered with universities. As set out in the section of our Good Practice Framework that covers partnership arrangements, awarding universities and delivery partners will both be members of the OIA, so that students can benefit from a route to independent review of both party’s responsibilities. Where only one partner is a member of the OIA, our remit to review issues of concern to students is more limited.

    As the shape of the HE sector has changed, our legislation has been amended several times to bring as many delivery bodies and awarding institutions accessing public money as possible within our membership, to ensure that all students have access to an independent review of their complaints. But not all Awarding Organisations are currently OIA members, even where these courses are eligible for student finance.

    Access and risk

    There are clearly benefits to students of having access to student finance to access non- universities-awarded courses such as HND, HNC and level 4 or 5 courses with a Higher Technical Qualification approval. But we are concerned that the current arrangements may be inequitable, given that some students cannot seek an independent review of some awarding organisations’ acts or omissions.

    We have sought to close this gap by agreeing with Ofqual that awarding organisations being in membership of the OIA Scheme is compatible with Ofqual regulation and opening our Non-Qualifying membership up for awarding organisations.

    The impact on students of the different arrangements materialises further in cases of provider closure. In previous provider closure cases either the university has proactively put in place appropriate options or if they wanted to raise a complaint, the OIA could look at what the university’s role is in resolving this.

    As things stand, students at a delivery partner that ceases to operate at short notice, on courses awarded by an organisation that is not an OIA member, may find themselves with no clear independent route for complaints and redress. In our experience, students studying at HE level via a non-university awarded route and accessing higher education student finance, have no real understanding of this difference from those on a university awarded course.

    In the case of ABA, we have received a small number of complaints from students on the DET course, who are not able to access any financial remedy since ABA has gone into liquidation and the only option is for the students to become an unsecured creditor against ABA.

    We understand that where City and Guilds has received the work of students, there was not sufficient evidence for them to confirm the qualification requirements had been met for any student. This has been particularly difficult news for some students, many of whom believed that they had passed the course and were simply awaiting receipt of their certificate. They are unable to access further funding to re-take the year, compensation or travel costs to complete their studies.

    In the current financial climate and where franchise provision is coming under more scrutiny, it’s hard to imagine there will not be more students in this situation at a provider impacted by a closure. Alongside this the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) will potentially open more level 4 and 5 “non university” awarded courses where students may be unable to seek independent redress.

    Whilst we completely agree that protecting public funds is important, we mustn’t forget that there is a real and significant human cost for the genuine students, sometimes with few sources of personal support to help them navigate their limited options, left behind.

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