Increased focus on consumer law and provision of fees information to applicants

We’ve previously advised that higher education providers review their student contracts and consumer law obligations in connection with tuition fee increases in our blog here.

When advising many institutions on their ability (or not) to raise fees for continuing students, we’ve seen issues with otherwise clear drafting not being properly incorporated into the student contract, and with contracts that incorporate insufficiently clear provisions. Of course, compliance with consumer law starts before a person has even applied to the university, let alone accepted an offer and entered into a contract. It’s essential that information provided online or in hard copy materials is correct, clear, and not misleadingly incomplete. This is particularly important when it comes to tuition fees, potential tuition fee increases, and other compulsory costs (for example compulsory field-trips).

Expectations around this are set to be reinforced by the CMA’s draft guidance on new obligations relating to pricing transparency under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA), which will apply to tuition fees, accommodation or anything else that students have to pay for. Additionally, if finalised in the current form, the guidance states that partitioned pricing — the practice of providing the component parts of a price without giving a total — will generally be prohibited. Will that oblige universities to provide the total cost of a course, rather than just per year? In any event, the Act creates a strict liability offence which means the risk of not providing clear pricing is even higher than before.  

The pricing transparency obligations particularly concern information that is provided in “invitations to purchase” — and the CMA has previously stated that in its view advertisements for courses, course webpages and prospectuses could all fall within that definition.  

More detail on the price transparency changes introduced by the DMCCA, including what amounts to an invitation to purchase and the information it must include is set out here.