UK's university regulator failing to act on looming crisis: report

Lawmakers in the United Kingdom (UK) on Wednesday accused the Office for Students (OfS), the country's regulating body for higher education, of failing to act on a looming financial crisis facing the country's university sector, reported Xinhua.

Members of the Parliamentary Industry and Regulators Committee raised concerns that the sector has become dangerously dependent on international and postgraduate student fees to compensate for increased costs, the freezing of tuition fees for home undergraduate students, and reduced research funding from the European Union.

The committee's report, "Must do better: the Office for Students and the looming crisis facing higher education," warned that both the OfS and the UK government are failing to act on this impending crisis.

The committee reached its conclusions after speaking to students, university leaders, and current and former government ministers.

The report said: "Home undergraduate tuition fees have been frozen since 2018, and their value has been further eroded by recent inflation. As a result, many higher education providers have developed an unhealthy and unsustainable reliance on fees from international students. The sector also faces other tough challenges, from the fallout of the pandemic to reduced European Union research funding and ongoing strikes."

The committee members called for a government review on how higher education is funded, and to set long-term, sustainable funding and delivery models for the sector.