The Westminster government has said it could introduce a system of student number controls for England, with options ranging from a “sector-wide cap” to “more granular” limits set by institution or subject, potentially setting them by looking at outcomes including graduate earnings.

Ministers have set out potentially major and far-reaching options for change on student number controls (SNCs) – abolished in England in 2015 by an earlier Conservative government – in a , published as part of its much-delayed response to the Augar review on 24 February.

The proposals, which could potentially have a deeper impact than the minimum entry requirement also being planned by the government, will raise big questions about whether students, and how many, could potentially be prevented from accessing higher education.

Although English universities have recent memory of SNCs, the current Department for Education intent to reshape the sector and rebalance the subject profile within particular universities, and its level of interest in graduate earnings by institution and subject, will likely make any future caps far more interventionist and impactful than before.

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“By consulting on SNCs, the government is not taking a position on what the correct proportion of people going to university should be,” the DfE says in the consultation. “Rather than focusing on the proportion who go, the government believes that the focus should instead be on ensuring that those who go participate in provision which they are likely to complete and which leads to positive graduate outcomes.”

“One possible approach is to use some form of SNCs,” it says of the aim to incentivise high-quality provision. “SNCs could potentially be introduced to restrict the entry of students into provision which has offered poor outcomes and instead tilt growth towards the provision of post-18 education and training with the best outcomes for students, society, and the economy.”

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Student number controls might also “improve the life chances of students and contribute to the government’s levelling up agenda”, the consultation paper adds.

In terms of potential methods for capping numbers, the consultation says there are “several approaches government could take if it were to introduce SNCs, which range from a basic sector-wide cap on all providers and subjects, like the SNCs administered by Hefce [the former Higher Education Funding Council for England] between 2010-2015, through to more granular outcome-based judgements about what provision should be capped and at what level”.

These approaches, the consultation explains, include capping overall student numbers at sector level, where individual institutions are set the number of students they can recruit; capping numbers by institution, “with provision for certain subjects (to be agreed based on a set of criteria or metrics) allowed to continue to grow”; capping numbers by institution and subject “based on an assessment of student/graduate outcomes for each subject, at a national level”; or capping numbers by institution and subject “based on an assessment of student/graduate outcomes at each individual provider”.

“These options could be nuanced to create variable caps, which allow for uncapped growth or controlled growth of some subjects, and/or different emphasis for controls at each level of study, for example to encourage growth in high-quality level 4 and 5 provision, and/or modular study,” the consultation continues.

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“If SNCs were to be used to incentivise high-quality provision and prioritise provision with the best outcomes for students, society and the economy, the question of how we identify such provision will be central to the consideration of the design of any potential SNCs policy,” it goes on. “How such provision is identified and measured would determine allocations, and whether and where student number growth is unconstrained.”

“These outcomes might be divided into three broad and related categories, none of which should be considered in isolation,” the paper says.

The consultation suggests that “quantifiable” outcomes would include “but may not be limited to” factors such as “earnings, which supports the fiscal sustainability of the system given its link to student loan repayments”, “progression to high skilled graduate employment” and “completion or continuation rates”.

The Office for Students is already making progress on plans to start regulating universities using metrics on the last two categories.

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The consultation also suggests that outcomes could include “societal” ones (such as “education and teaching”) and “strategically important ones” (including sciences, net zero and “areas identified by the Future Skills Unit”).

“Following the outcome of this policy statement and reform consultation, we would consider whether and how to implement and deliver SNCs,” the DfE says in the document. Further issues to consider after that would include “whether the data considered would be gross or contextualised using benchmarked data” – where universities will be concerned that there should be no disincentives to recruit disadvantaged students.

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john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com