LSST, a private college in North London, is currently offering government-funded places to individuals who lack the necessary skills. These candidates are sourced from Eastern European nations and even recruited off the streets. According to sources, lecturers have found themselves in an empty classroom on occasion. This issue is apparently commonplace and is causing the institution to be referred to as the ‘Cashpoint College’ or ‘ATM’. Many students have allegedly attended LSST believing that they will be funded via loans and grants up to £11,000 per annum, without any obligation to participate in academic studies. Over the last three years, the privately owned establishment has been awarded £6.5m in public funding and has grown three-fold since 2012 due to the relaxation of controls over student loans. LSST charges £6,000 in tuition fees yearly and, even when students loan funds are used but no work is completed, the college still benefits from increased numbers.
This is not just a problem for LSST; the higher education sector has serious concerns about the government’s plans for expansion of privately run educational institutions as it shows serious flaws in the plan unveiled by David Willetts, the higher education minister, in 2011. These little-known private academia bodies have been allowed to recruit an unlimited number of candidates to enable them to compete with established universities. The Guardian newspaper has now investigated LSST and has used undercover footage to exhibit a lecturer lecturing with no students present, as well as speaking to whistleblowers who have confirmed that attendance rates are as low as 40%.
The owner of LSST is the West London-based Zaidi family, which is believed to have roughly 1,500 students, of which 700 are from Romania and Bulgaria. The Zaidi family has come under considerable scrutiny in recent years over its ownership of different colleges in the UK. Some students studying at LSST have claimed that the institution allows individuals that have little or basic language and computer skill to enrol on technically-based courses such as music production, tourism, hospitality, business, and media. The Guardian has spoken with a former LSST vice-principal who has alleged that the race for enrolment is so intense that people are recruited through outside agents operating in job centres. This individual has also alleged that LSST staff assists students in passing entry requirements. Additionally, this former vice-principal, speaking anonymously, has claimed that many of the foreign and UK students, particularly the former category, do not fill out their own admissions forms because they are unable to do so.
The Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills is currently conducting an investigation into the private college sector and has found that around 3,000 Romanian and Bulgarian students are claiming loans in the UK without providing suitable evidence of their residency in the country. Private education colleges whose programmes are contentious will be assessed against much tougher conditions, and any money wrongly claimed will be recouped according to Willets. Concerns that the sector was expanding rapidly and causing a black hole in budget resources caused BIS to stop LSST and 22 other rapidly growing colleges from recruiting funded students until September 2014. Sourcing future talent will be difficult if the private sector finds considerable scrutiny being placed upon it, particularly if the government decides that the higher education sector is not run ethically.
LSST has admitted to supporting a group of people who were juggling their social, domestic, and professional commitments alongside university studies, resulting in low attendance. The college has stated that it has in place a robust method of recording and auditing student attendance, and has a full-time attendance officer. According to staff at LSST, there are fears that a substantial proportion of student finance is being wasted on students who will not complete their two-year diplomas, as internal college data indicated that just 30-40% of students submitted course material. "There were students that really worked hard, who produced all distinctions… I’m not implying there were no successes, but if we look at the vast majority of the results, they were mainly non-submissions," said the ex-vice-principal. LSST recently opened two new campuses in Luton and Hounslow to instruct many more students being financed by student loans. The English Department for Education (Bis) has informed LSST that they had not requested prior designation and have ceased the transfer of government loans to students being taught at these campuses. LSST stated that it had passed two effective quality inspections from the QAA and that the Edexcel exam board had scored it exceptionally well.
The college proclaims, "LSST has a mission to be an inclusive higher education institution, exceeding the aspirations of local and overseas students alike, and responding to social and economic demands of the area." So, while acknowledging these aspirations are challenging, they should be seen as results of pursuing such missions. The Shadow Minister for Higher Education, Liam Byrne, said, "This free-market free-for-all in higher education now costs Britain nearly a billion pounds a year…all too often, it’s money for nothing." Willetts compared the reforms to Michael Gove’s free schools and stated that while there is currently a movement to strengthen controls on private colleges, LSST and the emerging private college industry remain significant. "These colleges have an important role to play in providing students with an alternative to university. But students and taxpayers who fund them deserve quality service," said Willetts.
