FE/HE Collaboration: It Takes Two To Tango

The Lifelong Education Institute’s second report in partnership with the Mixed Economy Group of colleges is called Partners in Progress: Colleges at the Forefront of Technical Education. It takes a close look at the relationship between further and higher education across England. Following the strong emphasis on collaboration in last year’s Post-16 White Paper, it focuses particularly on identifying what more providers and government can do to infuse an active culture of partnership throughout the higher education system. Although FE colleges deliver only around 10% of higher skills courses, they are particularly strong in delivering at level 4 and 5, widely recognised as essential for UK industry, and at recruiting high proportions of adults from disadvantaged backgrounds, a key government priority.

Everyone agrees in theory that it’s vital for FE and HE to work in partnership

Everyone agrees in theory that it’s vital for FE and HE to work in partnership, but in practice the obstacles are formidable. It wasn’t always this way; in the 1990s and early 2000s collaboration flourished. But over the past ten years the Student Loan system, along with the lifting of student number controls, has undermined FE/HE collaboration in two major ways.

First, it’s created a situation in which universities have a strong financial incentive to grow the number of students on full time undergraduate courses. Not surprisingly the prestigious institutions in the Russell Group have done particularly well, many expanding hugely and rapidly. Some post-1992 universities have managed to succeed by growing their more vocational provision and building a reputation for getting graduates into employment. But others have struggled to attract students, which has pushed them into direct competition with FE.

As higher-tariff providers gobbled up more and more of the higher attaining applicants, many universities reacted by dropping their entry requirements to maintain their student numbers. Students who previously would have started their HE journey by doing a sub-degree programme – an HNC or HND –  at their local FE College, now find themselves snapped up by universities and put straight onto a degree course. In some cases university entry requirements for first year undergraduate students are lower than equivalent level courses in FE colleges.

Second Layer of Disruption to a potential Partnership

Many universities went further than just lowering their tariffs, causing a second layer of disruption to partnership. They began to develop what were effectively four year degrees with even lower entry barriers. Foundation Years, through which students started with an extra year before going on to the three year degree programme, expanded hugely. The “two plus two” model of a two year Foundation Degree at an FE College followed by a two year honours degree at a university, declined rapidly. This had been the glue that held many FE/HE partnerships together, and without it they simply fell apart. At the same time uptake on Access to HE courses at colleges also dipped sharply.

The barriers to FE/HE collaboration needs to be dismantled as soon as possible

The report reaches a clear conclusion: the barriers to FE/HE collaboration needs to be dismantled as soon as possible. If we are to realise the White Paper’s vision of opening up the system to wider access from disadvantaged groups and working adults through the Lifelong Learning Entitlement and Growth & Skills Levy, partnership between FE and HE is not just a bonus, but an essential prerequisite for success. It will take two to tango to get the system working better for employers and employees.

 There need to be much stronger, clearer, and easier to navigate pathways from level 2 through to level 6, with options to drop in and out of learning as career and other needs evolve; and to do this needs joint action between providers to develop mutually supported and signposted modular routes.

This is already happening in many parts of England. The sheer variety of ways in which colleges and universities have worked together is impressive, and there is no lack of effort and good will on the ground. The mixture of models – from validation agreements to more formal structural partnerships – is a response to the diversity of the local economies institutions are serving, and the historical pattern of provision each region has inherited. Accordingly, although the report recommends that FE/HE collaboration should be strongly encouraged, it warns against a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach and instead recommends that local partnerships should be enabled to grow organically, within broad national parameters, along the lines set out in our recent report on Newcastle University’s collaborative ecosystem, “Mapping the Course: education partnerships for continuous development” (LEI, July 2025). The report makes a number of recommendations about practical ways in which this process could be accelerated.

Upstairs Downstairs

But the system barriers to collaboration are still deeply entrenched. The “upstairs downstairs” culture that has seen FE characterised as a junior partner to HE needs to be replaced with the paradigm of a partnership of equals. The areas of FE strength – applied, vocational learning – are at last being recognised as being just as important as HE’s traditional strength in specialist knowledge and research, and bringing them together makes a powerful combination. In this respect, the White Paper’s highly positive language about the value of the FE sector is beginning to change the atmosphere, and it’s heartening to see the Association of Colleges and Universities UK working more closely than ever to bring the two sectors together.

However, the financial incentives encouraging competition rather than collaboration are still in place, and will be as long as the government continues to place no caps on university student numbers. Despite the HE sector’s current financial distress – or perhaps because of it – individual institutions are still driven to maximise income, even more so as restrictions on international student recruitment begin to bite. The launch next year of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement is highly unlikely to generate any significant short term increase in revenue, at least in the short term.

Stronger Financial Incentives

The report therefore calls for “stronger financial incentives for institutions at local level to develop multi-agency partnership work”. The Strategic Priorities Grant could be focused on supporting collaborative provision, as could the HE Innovation fund. Further targeted funding for expanding level 4 and 5 courses, such as the recent Higher Technical Education Injection fund, could also be reintroduced. Opening up the Growth & Skills Levy to modular HTQ courses would stimulate employer demand. And if partnerships at local level included other agencies, such as the NHS, or specific high-growth sectors, such as Life Sciences or Clean Energy, then other sources of funding might become available. However it’s done, a new, more productive interface between FE and HE needs to be forged. As the report’s title suggests, they need to be partners in progress.

By Andy Forbes, Executive Director, Lifelong Education Institute