Protecting students when providers are at risk of closing
When a provider closes, or stops delivering its higher education courses, it can have a serious impact on the students enrolled with it.
These pages explain:
- how we work with providers and other stakeholders with the aim to reduce the impact of closure on students
- our regulatory expectations and requirements of providers who find themselves at risk of closure.
We do not have powers to prevent a university or college from closing or have funds to help mitigate the effects. Remaining financially secure and avoiding closure is a provider’s responsibility as an independent organisation.
Our engagement with providers in these situations is focused on understanding how they are ensuring their financial sustainability and how they would protect their students if the worst happened and the risk of closure materialised.
We know that many providers are taking steps to ensure they are financially sustainable. While the optimal outcome is to avoid provider closure, when this becomes unavoidable, we need to ensure that the interests of students are protected as far as possible.
Institutional closure insight brief
In April 2025 we published an insight brief that summarised our experiences of actual provider closure and some recent instances where closure was avoided. This included insights of staff and students from those providers involved.
It sets out common approaches that providers should consider incorporating into their business as usual activities.
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