Funding for equity and success in English further education colleges, 1998–2003

Abstract

‘Incorporation’ in Further Education in England and Wales centralised policy control and implemented a per‐pupil funding formula that promoted equity, in that colleges were paid more for enrolling ‘disadvantaged’ students, and for performance, in that funding was contingent on retention and student success rates. This article analyses the impact of funding policy on student success rates for adults in general further education colleges using five years of student‐level administrative data from 1998/99 to 2002/03. Results from descriptive statistics show that student success rates rose by 10% during the five‐year period, with the largest gains made by ethnic minorities, adult basic education students, and students from disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Logistic regression results mirror the descriptive statistic results but find especially strong gains for adult basic education students and students receiving additional learning support funding.

Notes

1. ‘Disadvantaged’ students are defined as students coming from ‘backgrounds which have disadvantaged them’ (Learning & Skills Council, 2002), and are eligible for additional funding. These include adult basic education students, those living in deprived areas, those with mental health problems or drug dependencies, political asylum seekers, and others (Learning & Skills Council, 2002).

2. Detailed analyses of how the formula changed over time are explained in Jaquette (2005).

3. Franchised provision is when a third party provides education to students on behalf of the college.

4. To illustrate, in the 2002/03 ILR data student success was known for 86.5% of qualifications. This 86.5% would be kept in the sample. Of the remaining 13.5%, 1.5% had partial achievement, 2.5% exam not taken/result not known, and 9.5% qualification continuing to the next academic year.

5. Author’s calculation.

6. Author’s calculation.

7. Note that we cannot make a valid comparison to the 2002/03 data because the level assigned to some courses was changed as part of the transition towards a national qualification framework.

8. Author’s calculation.

9. The funding formula simulation changed slightly from year to year to reflect changes in the funding formula. Details on the construction of the simulation can be found in the appendix of Jaquette (2005).

10. The reason for this is as follows: the amount of ALS funding claimed per qualification is the midpoint of the ‘funding band’ that the amount of student support requested falls under. To maximise ALS revenue colleges tended to claim funding amounts at the lower end of higher funding bands rather than higher end of lower funding bands. Beginning in 2000/01 the government increased the number of bands, which undermined the strategy colleges used to claim higher ALS funding.

11. In order to check for high collinearity between ‘level of deprivation’ and students receiving a ‘postcode disadvantage uplift’, an additional model (not shown) was run without ‘level of deprivation’. The results for this model were very similar to the model shown.