Please note this is directly copied from a post on WeAreOCA https://www.oca.ac.uk/weareoca/news/oca-news-student-fees-from-august-2022/
We are announcing today, Tuesday 17th May 2022, the fees which will apply to the next academic year (from 1st August 2022 to 31st July 2023). At the start of the pandemic we made the decision to freeze our fees for the second consecutive year to reflect the difficult times affecting us all. From 2021 we restructured fees through a two-year programme approved by the OCA Trustees.
This new fee structure, which the Student Association has been consulted on in 2021, will provide a more transparent structure with changes to the cost per credit for all students at all course levels (also known as stages).
For the forthcoming academic year, each credit studied at undergraduate level will be £37.50 per credit up from £34 per credit in 2021. So for a 40 credit unit (also referred to as module) this equates to £1,500, or £2,250 for a 60 credit unit.
At postgraduate level the cost per credit is £45 up from £44 in 2021, so each 60 credit unit is £2,700
Foundation and short courses will be £935 and £305 respectively.
These fees apply to all UK-based students; international students are charged at a higher rate, to cover additional costs with the exception of short courses. Short course students will incur the same charge irrespective of their location. Full details of the fees can be found in the Student Fees Schedule.
Through our periodic reviews, our courses will be moving to an improved and more comprehensive format of three modules at all three levels. This has already occurred for half of our degree programmes, with the remaining programmes moving to this format from September 2022. This is especially important for Level 2, which will be moving from two 60 credit units to three 40 credit units. So while the overall cost for the level will increase, the cost per unit will be lower. We hope that with additional options to pay in instalments available, this will make it easier to afford for students.
We recognise that for some students there are financial difficulties so we are in 2022 increasing our hardship funding for students who may struggle to pay fees, and offering more tailored instalment options to reduce the impact of any change. Please see the Student Fees Schedule for details of instalment options.
With this new fee structure we are working hard on implementing enhanced services to improve your study experience. We introduced our new virtual learning environment, OCA Learn, and we will continue to develop and update this, we have added more study resources and library collections, and we have extended our use of the OCAWellbeing app which has proved popular with some OCA students. We are working with the student association to enhance study support and student communications, and are currently investing in these areas. In addition, we are giving students increased engagement time with tutors with more opportunity for tutor led peer sessions such as group critiques.
As a non-profit organisation OCA reinvests any income we receive to improve services to students, and for transparency we publish financial information for students annually to explain how the money received is spent. The latest information explains how funding was spent during 2020-21 https://www.oca.ac.uk/freedom-of-information/what-we-spend-and-how-we-spend-it/oca-financial-information/
Will Woods
Principal (OCA)
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