HEPI DEBATE PAPER 36 - What is wrong with franchise provision?

The Conclusion offers remedies in the context of the prescription in the Higher Education and Research Act (2017) that the sector be encouraged to compete and to collaborate. [...] He notes that disadvantaged students have poorer employment outcomes than middle-class students – is this a problem for the higher education sector to solve, or a challenge to the graduate jobs market?13 So what sense should we make of the suggestion that franchise provision is poor quality when compared to the rest of the sector? At the very least, we can see that the criticism is not straightfor. [...] How can it be in the interests of the sector or of students taught within the sector for franchisees to be so vulnerable to the changing business priorities of franchisors? Instead, we see a need for the sector to collaborate in order to establish new ways of managing franchise provision to provide greater levels of confidence to franchisors, franchisees, students and regulators. [...] We believe it is in the interests of the sector for all franchisees to be on this Register, and hence for the code of practice to prohibit franchise operations with institutions not in this part of the sector. [...] Instead, we argue the real challenge is to be found in the requirements of the Government and the Office for Students for institutions to act in competition.