Oxford Brookes removes ‘unfair’ clauses from student contracts

Two higher education providers have updated their student contracts following concerns they were “seeking to limit” their liability to students and “compromised” consumer rights, the English regulator has said.

The Office for Students (OfS) referred Oxford Brookes University and Fairfield School of Business to National Trading Standards, after it identified conditions in their student contracts that were “likely to be unfair”.

One term used by Oxford Brookes sought to limit its liability to students to 150 per cent of the total sums they had paid to the university, which the OfS said contradicted contract law and was lower than the compensation levels advised by the Competition and Markets Authority.

Another term sought to assert that the university would not be liable to a student for “events outside our control which we could not have foreseen or prevented even if we had taken reasonable care”. Examples included “industrial action, over or under demand from students, staff illness and significant changes to our funding or government direction to higher education”.

The OfS objected to this clause because it said many of these examples could “reasonably be within the university’s control”.

A third term allowed verbal or written agreements with students to be overridden by other documents that “seemed to limit the transparency and clarity of the information students received”, the regulator said.

A Trading Standards assessment deemed that the terms caused a “significant imbalance in the rights and obligations of the university and students, [causing] detriment to students”.

Oxford Brookes has since removed the clauses of concern, and the OfS has not taken any further action against the institution.

Fairfield School of Business also updated its student terms after it was investigated over contracts that the OfS said “failed to provide sufficient, up-front information about additional fees, used unreasonably wide discretion for alterations to course locations, delivery, and failed to bring terms that might be surprising or important to students – such as additional payments and interest added to late fee payments – to students’ attention”.

The move comes as part of efforts by the regulator to clamp down on institutions that could be infringing on students’ consumer protections, after it formed a new partnership with National Trading Standards in 2022.

Susan Lapworth, chief executive of the OfS, said it was important that students “know what to look out for in the terms of the contract they have with their university or college”. 

She said that she hoped by publishing details over the contract concerns it “helps students to understand what to check in their contracts and who to speak to about any concerns”.

“Universities and colleges should see these case reports as a reminder to review their terms and conditions for students and ensure that all language in contracts is clear and delivers the important protections set out in consumer law. We look forward to continuing our partnership with National Trading Standards and we will continue to refer cases where we have concerns that students’ consumer rights are at risk,” Ms Lapworth said.

A spokesperson for Oxford Brookes University said: “Following an assessment by National Trading Standards, we updated the terms of our contract with students for the 2023-4 academic year. Trading Standards took no further action and closed the case.”

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com