Introduction to the Office for Students

The Office for Students is the regulator for higher education in England.

We're here to make sure that students’ interests are protected, especially given that they commit significant time, effort and money when they study at university or college.

We want to make sure that students from all backgrounds benefit from a high quality higher education, delivered by diverse and sustainable universities and colleges. 

To support this aim, our role covers different areas:

1. Registering higher education providers

Universities and colleges that are eligible can choose to register with us. This gives them access to certain benefits. They can: 

• recruit students who can access student loans
• receive funding that supports the extra costs of teaching certain subjects
• apply for the power to award degrees
• apply for a licence to recruit international students.  

But they can only access these benefits if they meet our requirements.

We call these our ‘conditions of registration’. These are designed to protect the interests of students.  

Among other requirements, a registered university or college must:

• provide its students with a high quality academic experience that sets them up for work or further study
• set out how it will improve equality of opportunity for students from disadvantaged backgrounds
• show that it is well managed, well governed and financially sustainable.

If a provider applies to register with us and it is successful, we will list them on our Register. We currently have over 400 higher education providers registered with us, ranging from large universities to small and specialist institutions (such as conservatoires).

Our regulatory framework sets out in detail how we perform our role and contains guidance for providers on our conditions of registration.

2. Monitoring providers

To stay registered with us, universities and colleges need to continue to meet our requirements.

We look at things like the data and information providers send to us, along with notifications from individuals raising concerns, to make sure universities and colleges are meeting their commitments.

We might intervene to protect students if we have concerns. This could range from informal conversations with providers to resolve lower-risk issues, to undertaking a full assessment and imposing penalties like fines in serious cases.

We take a risk-based approach to regulation. This means that we focus our attention on those providers that are at greatest risk of breaching their conditions of registration.

3. Working with students

We work with students to understand their experiences of higher education and the things that are important to them.

We have a student representative on our board, and a Student Interest Board to help us to understand students’ perspectives and inform the decisions we make.

We run regular student polls to gather insight on different topics, and manage the National Student Survey to find out opinions on course quality.

We also help prospective students with the choices they face. With the other funding and regulatory bodies, we run Discover Uni. This a website for students that provides information, advice and guidance. 

And while we can’t support students with individual complaints, we encourage students to notify us if they have concerns about something that is happening at their university or college that might be relevant to our regulatory remit.

4. Encouraging excellence

We don’t just want higher education providers to meet our standards. We want them to exceed them.

We run the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), which encourages providers to improve and deliver excellence in the areas that students care about the most: teaching, learning and student outcomes.