Exclusive: Vice-chancellors say Office for Students’ plans for next five years will financially harm smaller institutions

University leaders have urged England’s higher education regulator to rethink its priorities, saying that smaller institutions will be financially harmed by increasing costs of its bureaucracy.

The Office for Students (OfS) already charges smaller institutions such as the Royal College of Music up to 20 times more for each student in registration fees than it charges larger universities, with vice-chancellors fearing that the costs of meeting the regulator’s demands will continue to balloon.