The rules required all private colleges to have “highly trusted sponsor” status with the UK Border Agency and to be reviewed by the Quality Assurance Agency. Legitimate private higher education providers embraced the regulations.
The Department for Business Innovation and Skills has written to the institution to confirm that it continues to meet the criteria for university title, following its £200 million sale to Montagu Private Equity.
In a bold and commendable move, the government last week granted university status to BPP University, making it the second for-profit private higher education institution in the UK.
The news that BPP has become the latest provider of legal education to slap a ‘university’ sticker on its for-profit business has not yet caused as much of a stir as when the College of Law adopted its University of Law moniker in November last year.
British education authorities have granted full university status to an institution owned by the Apollo Group, the corporate parent of the University of Phoenix, BBC News reports. With the move, BPP University College of Professional Studies, which offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses in business and law, now becomes BPP University.
Student numbers at private higher education institutions will be capped from 2014-15, the government has confirmed, while private providers will also be granted unlimited recruitment of high-grade students.
Private institutions will be allowed a route to “expansion via the back door”, it has been claimed, after it emerged that they will be able to recruit high-grade students more freely than publicly funded universities in 2014-15.
A London-based private provider is to offer pathway programmes with a consortium of Northern universities, enabling international students to get on to degree courses
A private medical school in Malaysia, Allianze University College of Medical Sciences or AUCMS, is to expand to Europe with the purchase of a major university site in London.