Described as ‘a victim of its own success’, Liverpool Community College has seen a significant increase in students, but is unable to obtain the funding required for so many new intakes.
More than 1,000 new students joined courses at the college this September, offering qualifications such as GCSEs and A Levels to 16 to 18-year-olds.
A spokesman for Liverpool Community College told JMU Journalism: “This is an exceptional performance, great for the college and extremely good news for the city region, with 1,000 young people who might otherwise have been another NEET statistic receiving skills that will benefit the whole city economy.”
However, this massive surge in new students, along with a slow funding system, has caused potential problems for the institution. The way the funding works means that the college can only get money based on the amount of students that enrolled last year, which is significantly less than their current intake.
“We are in some ways victims of our own success, because the Government’s Education Funding Agency pays out ‘in arrears’, and the additional funding isn’t scheduled to come through until the next financial year,” the spokesman said.
This system means unless their application for additional mid-year finance is approved by the Education Funding Agency, Liverpool Community College will not receive the £6m extra funding they require for another 12 months. The college has emphasised that despite the lack of funding available to them,“there is no question of their current services being affected”.