Success Pricing – a practical way to tackle colleges’ ballooning bills

It’s the start of a new academic session – a time to look to the future and plan for a successful year ahead. Operating in an increasingly challenging economic climate, it’s also a time to look at budgets (often stretched to capacity); and explore how to make the most of the money available.

It’s recently been reported by the Association of Colleges (AoC) that late registration fees cost its members £20 million-plus a year, almost the entire income of an average sized college! What’s more, around one in 4 bills for late fees are caused by student decisions (as they choose not to finish their courses etc).

It’s with this in mind that NCFE has adopted an alternative pricing method, allowing colleges to register learners without charge. Under our Success Pricing model, organisations can register candidates for free on any NCFE qualification and will only be billed for the number of learners that successfully complete the qualification and claim a certificate (or letter of unit credit).

Organisations will be billed at the point of certificate claim, and will be charged at a higher rate per candidate, based on the centre’s previous achievement rates (centres wishing to take up this option must meet our criteria and commit to using this invoicing model for a full academic year).

All qualifications are still offered with a combined registration and certification fee, invoiced at the point of registration. However, we want to be responsive to the financial pressures that our customers face and it’s for that reason that we’ve made this new pricing model available.

The model offers significant cash flow benefits to colleges, as well as being a simpler method of invoicing which reduces administration and removes the risk of discrepancies.

Overall, we’d like to see the money in colleges’ budgets being spent on the teaching and development of learners, not on unnecessary administrative costs.  After all, their achievement and success is our reason for doing what we do!

We feel that we can help to optimise colleges’ budgets and also their funding allocation – we offer hundreds of QCF qualifications which are confirmed for public funding under the Single Adult Skills Budget and 16-18 funding streams. These qualifications are available in a variety of sector areas and can be used in induction programmes, tutorial and enrichment activities, for improving your college’s outcomes on key government agendas, for employer engagement or to support workplace agendas.

To discuss adopting the Success Pricing model, you can call us direct on 0191 239 8000. For more information on our fundable qualifications, you can visit our website.

David Grailey is chief executive of NCFE, the training provider