The December 2014 report focused on students claiming this support for which they were not eligible, but the report released on Wednesday looked at the Department\u2019s delivery in resolving this major issue.<\/span><\/p>\n Current reports show that the Department had failed to recover \u00a336 million of the \u00a345 million, which includes \u00a316 million paid to EU students who failed to meet residency requirements. The reports also found that compared to universities, alternative providers have higher non-continuation rate.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAlternative providers make a strong contribution to the UK\u2019s higher education system, offering great choice, diversity and opportunities for students.”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Source: National Audit Office analysis of published Student Loans Company data<\/p><\/div>\n However, it also said there\u2019s been a significant reduction in ineligible payments since 2014 and the level of payments made to students attending providers fell from 4 per cent in 2012\/103 to 0.5 per cent in 2015\/2016.<\/span><\/p>\n The Department has made an attempt to reduce the number of ineligible payments to students at alternative providers but it does not have sufficiently timely and specific data to allow prompt measurement of the level of ineligible payments or analysis of trends, the report says. Further, the drop out rates at these alternative providers has fallen but it still remains higher than in the rest of the higher education sector.<\/span><\/p>\n In September 2017, out of 112 alternative providers that were accessing student support funding, \u00a0the Department has taken action against 11 providers with high non-continuation rates. SAE Institution London, London School of Business and Finance and City of London College – three largest institutions based in London, are no longer designated for student support because of high non-continuation rate and the Department has issued improvement notices on the remaining eight. <\/span><\/p>\n BPP University limited had non-continuation rates worse than its benchmark in \u2018first degree\u2019 qualifications. It has around 1000 undergraduates starting courses in 2014\/15. The Voice of London is still waiting for response from these institutions.<\/span><\/p>\n In a statement released by The Department of Education, a spokesperson said: \u201cAlternative providers make a strong contribution to the UK\u2019s higher education system, offering great choice, diversity and opportunities for students.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe welcome the NAO report and are pleased that it acknowledges the department\u2019s improved regulation of the sector to ensure quality and value for money. The oversight will be strengthened further by the new Office for Students, which has regulatory powers to hold institutions to account.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Words: Bishakha Dutta<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_BamYmr5kDo&w=560&h=315] The National Audit Office reveals that foreign students are targeting alternative higher education providers and whipping millions of pounds in student loan payments. \u00a0 The December 2014 report focused on students claiming this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-uknews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-20-at-1.29.27-PM.png\")