Recommendation 5

Student satisfaction with the value for money of their courses is at a worryingly low level. One of the OfS’s four regulatory objectives is that students receive value for money. OfS says that students should receive the academic experience they were promised by their provider and their interests as consumers should be protected before, during and after their studies. Overall student satisfaction has been consistently over 80%, but fell to 75% in the pandemic- one of the main contributing factors being dissatisfaction with learning resources required by lockdown restrictions. The proportion of students who thought their course was value for money is much lower and dropped from 38% in 2020 to 33% in 2021, with more than half saying it was not value for money. The OfS acknowledges that students’ view that they are not getting value for money is a cause for concern. The OfS believes that quality of provision is central to how students regard value for money, and asserts that quality is one of its top three concerns. The OfS says that it is looking at quality issues closely and that working with the universities to ensure that, even on oversubscribed courses, quality remains good. Recommendation: The Department and the OfS should set out what action the OfS is taking to improve students’ satisfaction with value for money, including the OfS’s assessment of the impact of hybrid teaching on students’ experience and what progress has been made in addressing the causes of dissatisfaction.