London Met University falls victim to drop-out miscalculation

An audit of the drop-out rates at London Metropolitan University has shown that the institution has been over-funded by more than £50m since 2005.

The university is expected to receive an £18m reduction in teaching budgets as well as being obliged to repay £38m in overpayments from previous years.

A motion before the House of Commons stated that the cuts could call the university’s future into question: “This scale of cuts throws the future viability of the university into doubt at a time when education and training are vital to the capital's economic health.”

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) stated that the substantial reduction in financial aid allocated to the university comes after an audit showed that the number of students recorded to be currently undertaking courses at the institute had been falsified.

The university has been accused of inaccurately recording student drop-out rates, which has led to the institution receiving a higher amount of funding than it was actually entitled to.

In response to the proposed cuts, the University and College Union organised a demonstration by its members last week at the university's London North campus on Holloway Road, to coincide with the governors’ meeting that afternoon. UCU says that the cuts faced by the London Metropolitan are “unprecedented”.

The university has also admitted that the “substantial” repayments, coupled with the future reductions in funding from HEFCE, mean that job losses “seem inevitable”, with up to 500 jobs at risk, and could also lead to the closure of a number of courses at the institute. The London Metropolitan already has one of the lowest staff-student ratios in the country with 2,300 full-time staff and 34,000 students.

Les Ebdon, head of the Million+ group of universities, has attacked the “perverse” method of counting non-completion rates as a method of assessing funding.

Mr Ebdon points out that students who resit and pass course modules in the following years are still counted as having dropped out and therefore funding is irretrievably lost for these students.

He also warns that this method of funding assessment is likely to hurt the universities making the greatest efforts to recruit poorer students, as it is these students who are most likely to drop out.

“We are taking a risk to implement government policy – but we're not getting support for it.”

He described the funding council's tactics as "gotcha audits".

NUS President, Wes Streeting, warned the government of over-reacting, saying: “London Met has been one of the best institutions at widening participation in higher education, and it is essential that HEFCE and the Government adopt an understanding and constructive approach to solving the university's financial problems. If staff numbers are slashed, then London Met students will inevitably suffer from a lower standard of education.”

A HEFCE spokesman says that the details of any other universities expected to be required to make repayments will not be known until March. However, Kingston University is among other institutions thought to be facing repayments. It says that after an audit the figure for students not completing courses was adjusted from 6.4 per cent to 8.6 per cent, a difference which would mean losing £500,000.

The HEFCE spokesman refuted claims of unfairness, asserting that the regulations had not changed and had always been consistently applied by the funding body. However, the regulations surrounding partially completed courses are to be subject to review in the coming year, which may address concerns surrounding students who had previously dropped out of a course, but then returned to complete their studies in subsequent years.

HEFCE states that there are to be negotiations with London Metropolitan over a repayment schedule, with a meeting set for next month.