Fees charged to Part-Time Adult Students 1998-99

'Where people live continues to be a very significant factor affecting both the range of opportunities to engage in learning as an adult and the price of that learning.  Arrangements for fee concessions continue to vary widely, and frequently, significantly affecting people's chances to learn particularly for those whose freedom to 'shop around' is affected by low income, age, disability or lack of transport.'

Fees Survey 1998-99, NIACE, 2000 

In January 1999, NIACE asked Colleges and Local Education Authority adult education providers about the fees that they charged to adult learners for part-time courses of around two hours per week. The full report, NIACE Fees Survey 1998-99, is available from NIACE, price £14.

Some courses are paid for with money from the Further Education Funding Council for England. These include basic skills such as literacy and basic maths, and English for speakers of other languages. Students do not have to pay any tuition fees to do these courses. In some areas they pay a registration fee such as £1 per term.

Courses leading to examinations such as GCSE or IBT II, are also subsidised by the Further Education Funding Council. Fees are charged for these courses, but it is usually much less than students would pay for courses which do not lead to a qualification. However, fees are often waived either as a result of fee concession policies or as part of promotional strategies to encourage wider participation.

Standard fees for examination courses are between 100 and 120 pence per hour (pph), while standard fees for other courses are between 180 and 200 pph.

Local Education Authorities (LEAs) have a duty to see that adults also have the opportunity to do personal interest courses which do not lead to qualifications. These are often called "non-vocational" courses. Some LEAs run such courses themselves, others pay their local college to run them on their behalf. Some LEAs choose to subsidise these courses, so adult learners in their area will pay less for a course than those in an area where there is no subsidy. Some LEAs allow their adult education centres to set their own fees, so there may be a variety of fees even within an LEA area. Many LEAs also run programmes of accredited courses for which they draw down funding from the Further Education Funding Council.

Most courses in colleges lead to examinations and are subsidised by the FEFC, but many colleges also choose to run non-examination courses, either at cost price or subsidised by the LEA.

Fees are waived for students on means tested benefits doing examination courses. Some providers also waive fees for such students, and other low-income groups, on other courses. Some courses aimed at learners from disadvantaged groups are free.

The average fee for examination courses is 118 pence per hour. It is very rare for any provider to charge less than 79 pence per hour. Over half the colleges charge between 84 pph and 127 pph.

The average fee charged for non-vocational courses is 199 pph. The average is slightly higher in colleges (218 pph) and lower for courses provided by LEAs (168 pph).

Concessions may be given on these fees to people on various means tested benefits, or other groups such as unemployed students, people with disabilities, or young people. The exact category of students eligible for concessionary fees varies between providers. So too does the extent of the concession; some providers will charge 50% of the full fee, others 25% or 33%. Older adults are often offered reduced fees, but they are likely to pay a higher percentage of the full fee than people on benefits. When these concessions are taken into account, the average fee for leisure-interest courses provided by LEAs is 64 pph for people on benefits and 100 pph for older adults.

In addition to the tuition fee per hour, a registration fee is charged by almost half the providers for examination courses, and a quarter of them for other courses. The registration fee is normally charged even to students whose tuition fee is waived. Most registration fees range from £1 to £10. This is often used as a strategy to build commitment to learning and is considered by many learning providers as helpful to their retention strategies. Views vary on this.

Fee Changes

Trends in average LEA fees over the last few years are shown in the following figure, using information gathered in previous NIACE surveys. Between October 1997 and October 1998, fees for examination courses rose by 7%. For other courses, fees rose only with inflation.

In colleges, fees for examination courses rose by 12%, while the increase in fees for other courses was less than the rate of inflation.

This means that the difference in the fees charged by LEAs and by colleges is narrowing for both examination courses (where LEAs charge more than colleges) and for other courses (where colleges charge more than LEAs).

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