The OFT is investigating universities’ terms and conditions.
The Office of Fair Trading, apparently at the request of the National Union of Students, has started an investigation into whether some of the sanctions imposed by universities on students, which may prevent them from progressing or graduating if they owe the university money, are unfair in relation to consumer protection legislation:
The OFT has opened an investigation under the Enterprise Act 2002 considering the terms and conditions used by some universities to prevent students from graduating or enrolling onto the next academic year or using university facilities if they owe monies to the university which relate to non-academic debts such as for accommodation or childcare, or if they engage in conduct (unrelated to academic performance) of which the university disapproves. It is considering whether such contract terms and/or practices breach the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and certain other consumer protection legislation.
As reported in the Independent the NUS is quite keen on this:
The NUS vice president for Welfare Colum McGuire said: “This has been on our radar for a while and we’ve been hoping to get some action taken. We’re really excited for the full investigation.” McQuire continued: “This came to our attention from students and unions across the country.”
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. It will be particularly important that the OFT gets a clear view on the issue of “non-academic debts” some of which, whilst they may not be explicitly academic in nature, are nevertheless inextricably linked to a student’s whole university experience. The OFT will also want to learn more about the ways in which conduct “unrelated to academic performance” can sometimes have a profound and negative impact on university life and is therefore not merely a matter of disapproval.
Writing in Outlaw.com, Pinsent Masons’ legal blog, Nicola Buchanan is pretty sure that the OFT will find universities’ actions wanting and that we will need to look at alternative approaches:
The OFT will publish initial findings in October and are likely to find the withholding of degrees for non-academic debt unfair. Universities should start planning now, and should take a leaf out of commercial organisations’ books if they are to find new and effective ways to recover non-academic debt.
So we will see where the investigation goes. The cautionary note in all of this though is really “be careful what you wish for” as the alternatives to the current set up may be far less pleasant for all concerned as Gary Attle has observed in Fusion, the Mills and Reeve blog:
We do wonder whether there may be another law at work here, namely the law of unintended consequences. What will be the consequences if universities, as academic communities, are constrained in using self-help measures in appropriate situations to manage their financial responsibilities. Will it be in the interests of students if universities are forced to resort instead to other credit control measures and debt collection procedures like commercial businesses and landlords?
Surely no-one wants to end up here?
Registrarism 
About time! I have recently retired from full-time work at a university after 15 years over which time I have seen the ‘sanctions’ for students becoming more and more draconian. Any business transition is difficult, I understand this, but many HEIs have moved from the public sector to the private sector and on their way lost their humanity and public service ethos, many, not all equate being business like with being utter ba???rds. Too often students are treated as criminals with only one aim to cheat the institution, never a thought that the institutions actually might be failing in their service to them.
Of course this is no universal and I realise many institutions and many staff offer students support through hardship and the stress that the current university experience imposes. However “hard cases make bad law” and often policy towards defaulting students is based an the few who are ‘pulling a fast one’, but in my experience most financial difficulties have some foundation in genuine hardship – this used to be because parents did not make their contribution now of course it is usually related to overseas students who have been treated as ‘cash cows’ by many institutions.