The load of all higher education students, that is those studying at level 4 and above, is used in determining the registration fee raised by the OfS. Field STULOAD from the ILR is used in this calculation so it is particularly important that this field is accurate.
See a description of our approach to calculating student numbers for regulatory purposes, including setting OfS registration fees, in our student numbers data. This page includes a technical document which explains the algorithms applied to ILR data to determine a provider’s higher education student numbers.