Student outcomes and excellence

We have proposed to set expectations for the numbers of students that we expect to:

• continue on a higher education course
• complete a higher education qualification
• progress to managerial or professional employment, or further study.

We refer to these as ‘numerical thresholds’ that we expect each university or college to meet, unless there are good reasons that a lower level is acceptable.

If our numerical thresholds are not met by universities and colleges (for example, if lots of students decide to drop out of a course), it could indicate a problem with the quality of courses.

We would then look at the university or college's wider context to make a rounded judgement about whether we should take any action. This might include:

• any unexpected short-term issues that affect the ability of universities and colleges to deliver their courses
• anything particularly unique about a university or college, or its students, that would make it unusually difficult to meet our numerical thresholds. 

In practice, our proposals would mean that we could take action if we find that a university or college doesn’t meet our numerical thresholds and there is no reasonable explanation for this. This could involve an investigation and, if we decide that a university or college is in breach of our conditions of registration, we may use our enforcement powers. 

This might mean, for example, imposing an improvement notice that would require a university or college to improve its performance, or imposing a fine.

So that we are transparent in our approach to regulating quality and standards, we plan to publish data for each university and college showing its performance in relation to the numerical thresholds we set.

We expect that publishing data will:

• incentivise universities and colleges to make changes where they can see their performance does not meet our numerical thresholds
• help students to make informed choices about what and where to study.