Course, campus or university closures

Our involvement in course, campus, university or college closures will vary depending on the circumstances.

Course or campus closures

Universities and colleges that are registered with us do not need to tell us about changes to individual courses. However they do need to tell us about:

• closure of a subject area, department or campus
• any events (happening now or in the future) that might mean that their student protection plan needs to be implemented.

We need to know about these events so that we can make sure that students’ interests are being protected.

We might also get involved if we have concerns that:

• students are not being treated fairly
• the quality of a course is being impacted by the changes
• the university or college isn’t implementing their student protection plan as promised.

University or college closures

We will always be involved if a university or college that is registered with us is at risk of closure.

We can require the university or college to produce and put into action a ‘market exit plan’. This is in addition to its student protection plan that it will already have already published.

The market exit plan will outline additional steps that the university or college must take to protect its students.

Where necessary, we can direct a university or college to publish information contained within the market exit plan where we consider it of interest to students, and direct a university or college to take or refrain from taking specific actions.

Other aspects of our regulation also help to ensure that universities and colleges have good governance and management in place to reduce the risk that they will get into these kinds of difficulties.