OCA preloader logo
Fees for 2013/14 - The Open College of the Arts

To find out more details about the transfer to The Open University see A New Chapter for OCA.

Fees for 2013/14 thumb

Fees for 2013/14

This is a post from the weareoca.com archive. Information contained within it may now be out of date.
 
We are announcing today, the student fees for the academic year which starts 1 September 2013. We are pleased to say that, for new students, the cost of a full degree will be largely unchanged. So UK-based students can still study for full degree for less than £8000 and the fees for the first level 1 course will be £795 (a saving of £200 on the standard level 1 course cost). Overall, fees will rise by 2.4% for students who started studying after 1 June 2012 and by 7% for students who started studying before this date and benefit from the lower protected student fee. This means the standard fee for level 1 course for UK based students will be £995 (£750 for protected students) and a level 2 or level 3 course will be £1,280 (£895 for protected students). Similar changes are being made to fees for EU and other overseas students.
A full schedule of fees is a available to download here.
Why are we making these changes?
As an educational charity we are committed to maintaining the lowest fees possible. We know that despite the loans now available to support part-time degree study that fees are a major issue. We said last year that we would seek to increase fees by no more than inflation, which was running at 2.4% in May when decisions on next year’s fees were being debated. That was the level of increase we were aiming for; unfortunately for protected students we have had to take into account two areas of cost which we were not expecting last year. The first is that a far higher proportion than forecast of our protected students are completing courses. This is good news educationally, but does result in higher accreditation fees. The second reason is that we anticipated the removal of Government funding, what we did not foresee was the imposition of costs by Government. This has come indirectly, but by requiring Colleges like the OCA to be subject to review by the Quality Assurance Agency, the Government has imposed a fee of approximately £15 per enrolment on the OCA. Again review is good news educationally, it provides us with an external perspective on the College and its processes, but it does mean extra costs which have to be met through fees.
Finally, we are reducing the cost of the first course, because this is consistent with our charitable purpose. We know that before they enrol many students have numerous questions: Will open learning work for me? Will I be able to find the time? Will the standard be too demanding? As a charity we want to give the largest range of people the opportunity to find out, to try a course and see if learning in this way works for them. It is for that reason that the trustees have agreed to bring down the cost of the first course.
In considering these changes we have worked with the OCA Student Association, sharing with the President the thinking we were taking the Trustees through. In reaction to the fees announcement, John Umney, President of the OCA Student Association said last week ‘Whilst OCASA recognises the need to keep fee increases in line with inflation and keeping new student entry competitively priced, it is disappointed to see the fees for protected students increase at a rate higher than inflation. OCASA recognises that the protected status of students still provides an incentive to remain on a study path with the OCA and trusts that the college will continue to strive to place the student learning experience at the top of its priority list.’ I can assure students that the College and its Trustees remain absolutely committed to ensuring the best possible student experience and will be working with OCASA on this and other issues in the coming year.
What now?
The reduction in the fee for the first course is being made with immediate effect; new students will benefit from the reduced fee from today. In common with previous years, we are allowing students to avoid the fee increases on other courses by enrolling before 1 September and placing the courses on hold (ie not starting them immediately). This concession is limited to students having no more than 120 credits worth of courses on hold. (That is a full degree level: 3 level 1 courses or 2 higher level courses)
Questions?
If you have any questions about the new fees please either post them below, email us at enquiries@oca-uk.com or ring us on 0800 731 2116
Gareth Dent
Chief Executive


Posted by author: Genevieve Sioka

15 thoughts on “Fees for 2013/14

  • I accept that costs rise and I realise that the college has a difficult time budgeting effectively and meeting these additional costs. What I don;t understand is why does all the cost increase have to be borne by the students with protected status. Looking at the new fee structure on attached table, I’m surprised to note that the fee for a whole degree for new UK students has actually gone down, due to the substantial reduction in the first course! Surely this is not right.

    • I understand your frustration Profstoff and I wonder if I could have explained the rationale rather better. Here is a second attempt.
      The Government decided to cease direct funding of undergraduate arts courses last year. Traditional universities with cohort based entry continue to receive direct funding for the cohorts who started in 2011 and before to enable them to charge lower fees for these students. This was not the case for the OCA all of our direct funding ceased in 2011-12.
      As a charity we do not seek to make a profit, rather to simply cover the delivery and development costs. The full economic cost per degree is just under £8000. The Trustees were concerned that this could prevent students already with the college from continuing their studies and agreed to subsidise these courses. This created the ‘protected student’ status and the subsidy is coming from the charity’s reserves. The scale of the subsidy is evident in the table linked above and is about £2100 per full degree..And it is the scale of the subsidy which is being reduced; for the reasons given above more protected students than anticipated continuing their studies and Government imposed costs which were not announced until April of this year.
      Given there are no other sources of money, if we did not increase protected student fees, we would have to draw on reserves more heavily or increase fees to new students to get them to subsidise the protected students.
      You are right that the fees for a full degree have gone down by £20 for a UK student starting today, this is a consequence of rounding the fees to the nearest £5; for all other students without protected status fees have gone up by 2.4%.
      I hope this is helpful.

  • I believe wholeheartedly in the OCA and the quality of its Courses and Tutors and I have to be open about the fact that the Course fee rise will not affect me because I had already planned to start my final 3rd Level Course in August in order to avoid the increased costs (although at the time of the decision I assumed that the price increase would be the rate of inflation).
    Having said that I am aggrieved at the decision to raise protected student fees by 7% (roughly 3 times the rate of inflation). I cannot help feeling that protected students have been treated badly and, whilst recognising that the OCA was caught between a rock and a hard place, it could be argued misled. It is anybody’s guess as to how many active students would have continued on their path to a degree had they known that their fees would rise at three times the rate of inflation. More importantly I fear that future necessary rises may well be more heavily loaded on those who have protected status in the knowledge that such students, who have committed a great deal of time and money to reaching their present level of studies, have much more to lose by abandoning their Courses because all that effort and money will be lost. Can we at least be assured that future rises will be more equitably shared between the whole of the student body.

    • It is difficult to give you the assurance you seek Cedric because while I recognise it would have been better if we could limit the fee increase for protected students to the rate of inflation, I also believe that the distribution of the fee increases is equitable for the reasons I give above. I can certainly assure you that we will:
      – seek to minimise future increases
      – seek to distribute increases equitably, and
      – ensure OCASA are party to the debate on fee increases

    • I am glad to se you are such tough negotiators!! It may be something of a surprise to you but my guess is that increasing fees and the way that they have been implemented is a major concern for all students – protected or otherwise. Financial planning is necessity for all of us and if we cannot rely upon statements made by the OCA then we will find ourselves in the deep do-do.
      Is it possible for you to suggest a two or even better a thre year commitment to fee levels.

      • Cedric, not sure what course you are taking, but a number of the OCASA committee posts are due for change in the next couple of months, maybe you could volunteer and help us with negotiations?

  • I understand your position with regards to the imposition of govt fees leaving OCA in a difficult position. Perhaps before making a decision to increase fees you had promised to protect, you could have put your case before students to ask for their understanding and approval, instead of making the unilateral decision to increase fees of current students by a greater rate than new students. I will treat any future promises or assurances as at best ill-informed projections, at worse as cynical attempts to increase enrollment.

  • While I don’t enjoy cost increases any more than the next person, am I alone in observing that truly equitable distribution of cost increases would have resulted in no protection for existing students and all students paying exactly the same from the outset.
    By drawing on reserves to provide the existing level of protection the OCA is clearly trying to balance the needs of existing students, the need to attract new students and the need to have something put by for unexpected cost rises.
    While this stance is unlikely to get me elected to OCASA any time soon we need to be realistic. The total increase in costs over 7 years is significantly less than a camera upgrade or an additional lens.

  • I think its worth pointing out how important it is that the college is in good financial condition….I used to study at one that failed financially and had to be rescued…the situation had a very bad knock on effect on my studies because on that occasion that other college lost the franchise for my degree course and I gave up my studies. I’d really, really hate that to happen again, I don’t think we have any choice but to trust the management on this and hope that the student union is making appropriate representations to protect our interests (not just financial)

  • Gareth – are you able to give us any indication of fee levels when we move to the new three-module level there courses. Will it still cost much the same for the full year?

    • When this was brought up before and in discussions on the change to the structure of the level it has always been understood that the fees for the level would be the same for the three 40 credit modules as they would have been for two 60 credit ones; the same price per credit as it were and there are still the same number of credits (120) in the level. Now I cannot guarantee that the fees will not change year on year, firstly as I cannot speak for the OCA and secondly as who knows what government has in store for us but the reality is that the level only changes in content (and quality we hope) not in academic ‘length’.

  • I had understood that also Peter, but couldn’t find an official statement of intent on fees. The new courses are I think due to start within the next six months and people are starting to get anxious about cost so it would be good to have an idea of the intended charging plans.

    • A good question Eileen and Peter’s answer is spot on. The overall level fee will not change. To be precise, the total for three modules which will make up the new level three will cost exactly the same as the total for the two modules which make up the existing level three, and this applies whether one has protected status or not. We have yet to decide how students are expected to pay for this level, but no student will be expected to pay more on entering level three than they pay now.
      As the idea is that the modules in the new level three are studied concurrently, this means that there will be an initial fee and then a subsequent payment of the balance. We haven’t decided when this second payment would fall and will consult OCASA on this shortly.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

> Next Post How can we democratise art?

< Previous Post Archives inspire

Back to blog listings