Ministers are being urged to rethink the funding cuts crippling the Open University

Ministers are being urged to rethink the funding cuts crippling the Open University.

The institution – which has provided a ‘ladder of opportunity’ for millions – is a victim of the changes to tuition fees.

It has been hit by a dramatic fall in part-time students, and education experts say ministers have to give it a subsidy so it can lower its fees.

Tory MP Robert Halfon said: ‘Far from cutting funds, we should be doing everything possible to support the OU financially.’

Conservative peer Lord Willetts, who as universities minister introduced the 2012 tuition fee changes that have caused the crisis, admitted there was a ‘problem’.

He said ‘some level of public funding’ should return for mature students, such as those attending the OU. This issue should be a ‘priority’ for the Government’s current review of post-18 education and funding, he added.

The number of students enrolling with the OU has slumped from 242,000 in 2011/12 to 173,927 in 2016/17 – a fall of 28 per cent.

By some estimates, the OU has lost 600,000 students who might have been expected to start studying in that period if the funding had not changed.

Most of the drop was in England, which is affected by the Government’s fee changes.

The OU has traditionally been the ‘University of the Second Chance’, helping people often later in life and while holding down a job.

Almost 80 per cent of OU students work full or part-time during their studies, and the institution has helped more than 2 million people since it was founded in 1969.

But in 2012, the Coalition Government withdrew teaching grants to universities across England and allowed fees to triple from £3,225 to £9,000 a year.

It was believed this would encourage the take-up of higher education due to the creation of a ‘market’ in fees.

But it had the opposite effect on part-time students, who are often older and more likely to be deterred by debt.

Despite losing tens of millions of pounds of state funding, the OU said it tried to keep its fees ‘as low as possible for as long as possible’, but it has had to increase them significantly. An OU degree now typically costs students about £18,000 over six years, compared to more than £27,000 over three years at conventional universities.

Lord Willetts admitted that mature students were being put off by the fee and loans system that he oversaw as a minister.

Asked whether there should be a Government subsidy for the OU, he said: ‘My view is that, yes, we should bring back some level of public funding for mature students because whereas the fees and loans have worked for the people coming from schools straight into university, it’s not working so well for mature students and we need to promote more adult learning.’

Mr Halfon, the chairman of the Commons education select committee, said the OU was ‘probably one of the most important education institutions in our country’ because it provided a ‘ladder of opportunity’ to millions.

He added: ‘To me, the OU should be the kind of model of higher education we should be supporting in a big way – far from cutting funds we should not only subsidise it but actually be doing everything possible to back it financially and politically.’

He said the OU should be regarded as an ‘elite’ university and receive ‘significant amounts of support from the Government because of the work that it does’.

Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute think-tank and former special adviser to Lord Willetts, said he thought the OU had ‘priced themselves higher than they needed’ in 2012 and should have charged ‘slightly lower’ tuition fees.

Pictured: Open University Business School [The Michael Young Building], Milton Keynes

But he added: ‘The Open University has been hit very hard by the higher fees and it is time to look again at introducing a direct subsidy for educating part-time students.’

A spokesman for the OU said it was consulting students and industry leaders about the proposals it will present to ministers. These could include calls for a return to a form of direct taxpayer subsidy – either to the university itself or to part-time students in the form of tax breaks or direct grants.

The spokesman said: ‘We know that money is tight but we believe that offering people an incentive to learn while they earn saves taxpayers money in the long run because higher skills bring economic benefits and help people transform their lives.

‘Part-time higher education has been treated as a Cinderella service when it could hold the key to future prosperity. The Government needs to introduce some form of “flexible learning incentive” in England to bring down fees for hard-working part-time students.’

Part-time study in England has been ‘decimated’ by the hike in tuition fees, research from the Sutton Trust found. A report last month revealed that the number of part-time students in England has declined by 51 per cent from 215,900 in 2010 to 105,500 in 2015, with the OU experiencing an even bigger fall of 63 per cent.

Conor Ryan, director of research at the Sutton Trust, said: ‘Part-time study, including the Open University, offer crucial second chances for social mobility.

‘A major reason for (the fall in numbers) has been the big increases in tuition fees, but it also reflects changes in eligibility for second degrees and less support from employers.’

A Department for Education spokesman said: ‘We already offer tuition fee loans for all types of students, including those who are part-time, but recognise the difficulties faced by some. That’s why we are introducing maintenance loans for part-time students equivalent to those available for full-time courses.’

n The Open University’s council will today discuss a union’s vote of no-confidence in its vice-chancellor.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) last week overwhelmingly backed a motion which called on Peter Horrocks, 58, to resign. Mr Horrocks has angered OU staff by claiming academics ‘get away with not teaching’ and branding impending cuts ‘reprioritising’.

The row comes as the university plans a ‘radical’ overhaul, which aims to save £100 million from an annual budget of £420 million. A specially convened meeting of the OU council has been called today to discuss the proposed cuts and concerns about the institution’s leadership.

A source said yesterday: ‘Most of us recognise the need to modernise the way we work and seek to constantly improve what we do for students. But there are differences over how far and how fast that should go and over the leadership of what is a radical reshaping of the OU.

‘The special council meeting is an opportunity for all these issues to be aired in a free and frank discussion – and hopefully we can move on from there.’