One of the English universities most heavily involved in franchising has decided to dramatically scale back its activity, terminating its contracts with three providers.

Buckinghamshire New University has announced it will no longer work with the London School of Science and Technology, having already ended links with the Oxford Business College. It said it?also gave notice of termination to Regent College London at the end of last month.?

The institution¡¯s new vice-chancellor, Damien Page, has been reviewing all partnership agreements since coming into post in February 2025 and wants to reduce?partnership provision by 50 per cent to ¡°remove the university¡¯s reliance on this activity¡±, the institution said.

An analysis last year by Times Higher Education identified BNU as having the most students on franchised courses in the country, with 12,320 in 2021-22 ¨C up from 4,100 three years earlier.?

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Another of those in the top five, Leeds Trinity University, was recently fined by the English regulator the Office for Students after an investigation that identified a lack of oversight over the arrangements.

Franchising ¨C whereby a university subcontracts out the delivery of?a course to another provider ¨C has boomed across the sector in recent years, seen as a way of widening participation by extending provision into ¡°cold spots¡± but also as an extra income generating activity.

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With expansion however has come much greater scrutiny, with education minister Bridget Phillipson recently promising to crackdown on poor franchised provision.

Oxford Business College, one of BNU¡¯s former providers, recently lost access to student loan funding due to concerns about the recruitment and attendance of students. It said at the time that it planned to appeal the decision.

BNU¡¯s former vice-chancellor, Nick Braisby, has previously accepted there was a need for greater regulation but there was a risk of the ¡°baby being thrown out with the bathwater¡± and this type of provision being shut down entirely.

In announcing the scaling back of provision, BNU said: ¡°There remains a place at BNU for smaller, high-quality partnerships and transnational collaborations.¡± Three new proposals are currently being considered, it added.

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But the university¡¯s council will have to approve all partnership agreements from now on and a new university collaborations committee has been established to provide greater oversight.

The Office for Students was informed of the termination of the agreement with LSST on 4 June and BNU said it will enact its student protection plan to help students complete their studies.

It has also commissioned an external auditor to ¡°investigate the historic issues?which have been unearthed relating to Oxford Business College¡­and to establish?if poor practice extends to other partners¡±, promising to share findings with the relevant authorities.

Page said that ¡°terminating these partnerships means that BNU will become more secure in the long term, creating a future that is dependent only upon our own work, our own innovations and our own ambitions, free of the risks that large partnerships can bring¡±.

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¡°It means that we can become even more focused on growing core numbers and smaller, ethical partnerships, even more focused on providing an exceptional experience for our students and challenging the status quo of the HE sector.¡±

LSST was contacted for comment.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com