Cashpoint College To Be Investigated - Investigate Them All Says BigAndy9

22nd May 2014

An investigation will be launched into a “cashpoint college” that enrolled more than a thousand students – including hundreds of eastern Europeans – onto courses with little requirement to actually turn up.

The National Audit Office has been told to investigate the London School of Science and Technology (LSST) after it was claimed that the private college had recruited unskilled students off the street and lectured to empty classrooms.

It emerged that the college has tripled in size in the last three years after the Government relaxed controls on the number of students taking out taxpayer-backed loans to study at private colleges.

Students can claim £6,000 in loans every year.

But The Guardian claimed that LSST – dubbed the “cashpoint college” and “the ATM” – failed to require students to turn up or complete work.

Of the 1,500 students enrolled at the college in Wembley, some 700 are believed to be Romanians and Bulgarians, who can claim loans in the same way as British students under EU law.

An estimated 300 of these students are understood to have already had their loans withdrawn by the Government, it was reported.

Today, lecturers’ leaders warned that the situation at LSST was potentially being repeated at private institutions across England because “no quality control checks” are in place and colleges can recruit unlimited numbers of students’ at taxpayers’ expense.

Figures published last summer showed that 160,000 students were enrolled at some 674 privately-funded institutions in 2012/13. LSST is believed to be the fourth biggest private provider of courses in the country.

Private institutions are using £900m of public funding this year compared with £40m in 2010, separate figures show.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10849889/Probe-launched-into-waste-of-money-at-cashpoint-college.html