England's postgraduate student support rules are being tightened for franchised provision under the Education (Student Support for Postgraduate Provision) (Amendment) Regulations 2026. The instrument was made on 2 June 2026, laid before Parliament on 4 June 2026 and comes into force on 25 June 2026. Although it extends to England and Wales, it applies in relation to England only. The regulations amend both the Education (Postgraduate Master's Degree Loans) Regulations 2016 and the Education (Postgraduate Doctoral Degree Loans) Regulations 2018. According to the explanatory note, the main policy change is the removal of automatic designation for courses delivered by unregistered providers on behalf of registered providers. That matters because designation is the legal route through which eligible students can access master's and doctoral loan support under section 22 of the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998.
The immediate change in June 2026 is legal, but the operational shift is staged. For courses with start dates before 1 September 2028, the regulations preserve a broader route for provision delivered on behalf of a registered provider in England. For courses starting on or after 1 September 2028, that route becomes narrower. From that date, a franchised course will be designated for postgraduate student finance only if the delivery body is a qualifying franchised provider. The legislation puts three groups in that category: registered providers, exempt public or state-backed bodies, and below-threshold unregistered franchised providers. The exempt category is broad and includes schools, academies, further education institutions, local authorities, mayoral combined authorities, NHS bodies, police and crime commissioners, government departments and the armed forces.
The drafting gives franchised provision a wide meaning. A provider is treated as a franchised provider where it teaches or delivers all or part of a course to students who are registered at a registered provider in England, and does so on that provider's behalf. A student becomes a franchised student where more than 50 per cent of the modules, credits, credit points or other units on their course are, or may be, taught by one or more franchised providers. That 50 per cent test is not limited to direct teaching arrangements. The regulations say a provider is treated as teaching or delivering the course where it does the work itself or sub-contracts that work to another body. In other words, the Department for Education has drafted the scheme to capture layered subcontracting arrangements rather than only the first contractual link between a lead provider and a delivery partner.
The student-number threshold is set at 300, with a regulation-making power for the Secretary of State to vary that figure and publish an updated threshold on gov.uk. During each designation period, the Secretary of State must determine the student population of each unregistered franchised provider that is not exempt. The calculation must use Office for Students data for the academic year beginning 36 months before the first day of the implementation year. The count is wider than the number of students receiving postgraduate finance. It includes full-time, part-time, online, publicly funded and non-student-finance courses at level 4 or above, and it applies regardless of the fee-status categories in the Education (Fees and Awards) (England) Regulations 2007. Apprenticeships and students taking modules or credits only are excluded. Where providers sit within the same corporate group, they are treated as one provider for counting purposes.
Where the Secretary of State cannot calculate an unregistered franchised provider's student population for the reference period, the default position is that the provider is treated as having fewer than 300 students. That default falls away if the provider notifies the Department, as soon as reasonably practicable, that it expects to reach 300 or more students in the implementation year. Once that notification is given, the provider is treated as being at or above the threshold. After making the determination, the Secretary of State must issue a notice of status. The notice must state whether the provider is registered or exempt, the student population figure used, whether the provider is below threshold, and whether any courses taught or delivered by that provider in the implementation year will be designated for student finance. For providers recruiting on long lead times, that notice becomes a key compliance document rather than a routine administrative step.
The regulations also create formal appeal routes. A franchised provider may appeal a notice of status in writing within one month if it reasonably believes that it is, or will be, an exempt franchised provider during the implementation year, or if it reasonably believes that its student population will remain below 300. That gives providers a short period to challenge the Department's classification before course recruitment is settled. A separate correction mechanism applies where a provider was treated as below threshold but later proves to have had 300 or more students at any point between the start of the calculation reference period and the end of the implementation year. In that case, the Secretary of State may revoke designation for courses beginning in the following academic year, described in the instrument as the correction year. The Department must first issue a notice of a correction year, and the provider may appeal within one month if it reasonably believed, on the course start date, that it would remain below the threshold. The Secretary of State also keeps a discretion to disapply a revocation where that is judged appropriate.
Part 4 adds a transitional safeguard for providers already in the Office for Students registration process. A franchised provider will be treated as a qualifying franchised provider for the academic year beginning on 1 September 2028 if it applied to join the register before 1 July 2026, the Office for Students confirmed before 1 September 2027 that the application met its criteria, and no final registration decision had been issued by that date. There is also a temporary appeal route that expires on 31 August 2029. Where a provider receives a notice stating that it is not a below-threshold franchised provider, it may appeal if it reasonably believes that its student population was below 300 in the appeal reference period, defined as the academic year beginning 24 months before the implementation year. The Secretary of State must then recalculate the population, make a final determination and notify the provider of the outcome.
For universities and other lead providers, the practical effect is that postgraduate franchise arrangements now carry a clearer student-finance risk from the 2028-29 academic year onward. Courses starting before 1 September 2028 can still rely on the wider transitional position. Courses starting on or after that date will need to be checked against provider status, projected student numbers and, where relevant, the progress of any Office for Students registration application. The amendments also tighten the existing rules on courses that become designated because the English higher education provider on whose behalf the course is delivered later becomes a registered provider. Before September 2028, that route remains available on the broader basis. From September 2028, it survives only where the course is delivered by a qualifying franchised provider. The regulations preserve a limited exception for certain courses provided outside the United Kingdom on behalf of a registered provider in England. The explanatory note adds that a full impact assessment has been published alongside the instrument, indicating that the Department expects compliance and cost effects across higher education providers and public bodies involved in postgraduate delivery.