Education agencies are recruiting unqualified students onto franchised university courses by promising £18,500 in taxpayer cash which they use for holidays and never repay, a Mail probe has found.
Recruiters tell TikTok and Instagram followers ‘the government will pay you’ to study.
One told an undercover Mail reporter, posing as an applicant with no wish to study, she could get a place on a £9,250-a-year course and that ’95 per cent of people who get this money will never pay it back’.
The revelations come amid a crisis in university funding and in the student loans system. Graduate debt hit £236billion in March and is predicted to reach half a trillion by the late-2040s.
Anyone with settled immigration status can apply to the Student Loans Company (SLC) for government cash to go to university. Many adverts on social media are in foreign languages.
A Romanian recruiter at the Concreted Education agency in London’s Canary Wharf, suggested the cash students get for annual living costs would help fund ‘wedding season’, while another said: ‘£13k maintenance loan equals 13 holidays to Spain.’
The agency’s founder posted a video on her personal account of people at the beach and popping champagne in a pool. A caption read: ‘How life feels when you’re using your maintenance loan from Student Finance to maintain your travel addiction’.
An agency spokesman said its TikTok posts were ‘purely for entertainment purposes’ and are ‘not meant to… encourage the misuse of taxpayer money’.
A recruiter from Merseyside Consulting, with offices in London and Liverpool, told a reporter ‘it’s really easy’ to get onto a course even for people ‘who don’t have qualifications, who don’t speak English very good’.
He recommended applying for a ‘super easy’ business management course. The agent claimed the reporter would ‘get money from the Government’.
When pressed on whether the money has to be repaid, the agent replied: ‘You are only repaying some of the money if you get a very good job and you are on too much money. He claimed that ’95 per cent of people… never pay it back’.
Another employee at the agency in Mile End, east London, said people avoid repaying the loan by not fully declaring their income after graduation.
The agency recruits through Instagram where it claims applicants can ‘join a UK university without qualifications and get up to £18,500.’ An agent at Concreted Education said it was ‘no problem’ when the reporter claimed to have no GCSEs, as she could get into university with two years’ work experience – which is in line with government requirements.
The agent said the course would be funded by a student loan that must be repaid, but she said some students earn below the £25,000 salary threshold to avoid having to repay it.
The agent suggested a four-year business management course at Cecos College in Stepney Green, east London, partnered with Staffordshire University.
The Mail found at least three other agencies on TikTok recruiting students with ‘zero qualifications’ who can pocket ‘£75,000 funding if they become a student here in the UK’. Agencies fill spots at universities and franchised partners, which have lower entry requirements for subjects like health and social care, construction and tourism. The franchised provider is responsible for teaching the students on their own campus, often in dingy office blocks.
Students can self-fund or apply to the SLC for annual loans for tuition fees of up to £9,250 and maintenance of up to £13,300.
Universities get up to 30 per cent of the tuition fee, while franchised partners pocket the rest. Agencies are paid commission.
Last year, the SLC paid £1.2billion in loans for students to study at franchised providers.
A parliamentary committee has warned that lax scrutiny of franchised universities has exposed the student finance system ‘to exploitation from systemic and organised fraud and abuse’.
A spokesman for Concreted Education said it ‘vehemently denies’ any wrongdoing and that it abides by strict government regulations and guidelines in the higher education sector.
The agency said it does not advise students to manipulate their earning to avoid loan repayments, and is investigating the agent in question.
Merseyside Consultancy said: ‘We never tell people to lie.’