How do we understand the geography of higher education provision? I’d been helping (carrying bags) with a land use study in Oxford which took us to an industrial estate where a set of serviced offices house Oxford Graduate College Ltd. Another trip to a back street off the Cowley Road found City College Oxford, which advertises undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
I had a go at trying to capture all the provision that exists, or purports to exist, in Oxford before – this is another attempt. These are non hierarchical categories. I am, however, making a subjective judgement as to what being in Oxford means. The City’s boundaries are drawn quite tightly, I am allowing an amount of leeway, but this doesn’t to stretch to different towns. McTimoney College says that it’s ‘on Oxford’s doorstep’, but it’s in Abingdon. The same goes for places in other counties – there’s a provider called the ‘Oxford College of Education’ which is in High Wycombe.
Providers on the OfS Register
Activate Learning is a group of colleges and it trades as the City of Oxford College (although that trading name is not on the OfS register). It has a sub-brand Rycotewood which used to be in Thame and is famous for a court case on student rights.
The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford is a registered provider.
Oxford Brookes University is registered. It currently has two campuses which are former teacher training colleges outside the city boundary, but it is intending to leave both of them and just be based in Headington.
PHBS-UK – the Business School of Peking University is based in the former OU regional centre at Boars Hill, overlooking Oxford.
University of West London merged with Ruskin College which is now just basedin Headington.
Providers not in the OfS register but which offer courses of providers on the register
Oxford Business College has a number of sites in the city as well as branches elsewhere. It has used campuses of other providers. It offers business management degrees from Ravensbourne and Buckinghamshire New University.
Magna Carta College is based at Oxford Business Park. It has offered online education with Buckinghamshire New University, but is now starting a course with weekend tuition at BNU’s campuses in High Wycombe and Uxbridge.
Overseas providers on the student sponsor register
The Washington International Study Council has undertaken educational oversight monitoring with the QAA, most recently in February 2023. The students are taught at four Oxford Colleges where they earn credit to take back to their home universities. The administration for this is from George Street in Oxford.
Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Studies is a long standing provider of opportunities for study abroad in Oxford Colleges, it now has a link with Middlebury College. Its administration is in Shoe Street, students are associate members of Keble College.
Other providers
Azad University (IR) in Oxford. In Farmoor, just outside Oxford, is a branch of an Iranian university. It is exempt from student sponsor registration as students are registered at the Tehran university first.
EM Normandie offers bachelors and masters degrees which can involve some time on their ‘campus’ in Oxford – which is based on the City of Oxford College site.
Stanford University has a base on the High Street (previously it was based in grand country houses, Harlaxdon and Cliveden) where students visiting can live.
University of Georgia has a large house on the Banbury Road where students are taught UGA courses by Oxford faculty.
Oxford College of Marketing offers a range of CIM courses an a ‘Mini-MBA’ but their courses are not linked to HE qualifications.
CAE Oxford Aviation Academy is on the UKVI student sponsor register but their courses are not linked to HE qualifications.
Oxford School of Drama describes itself as a world leading conservatoire – it runs a three year course but has not linked this to a HE qualification.
Oxford Media & Business School offers a ‘professional business diploma’ – as an alternative to university. This is not linked to a HE qualification.
City College Oxford is in Hurst Street (pictures below). On the entranceway it advertises undergraduate and postgraduate courses, including MBA. The website lists of number of universities that award and deliver these courses, but that is not obviously reciprocated on the universities’ websites. The courses are online, which is handy as it’s not a very big building. ‘College’ isn’t a protected word in the names of companies (neither is ‘collage’ which it was briefly known as).
RB (Royale Business) College has a ‘campus’ at the Oxford Business Park. It says you can do online degrees validated by Portsmouth or MBA/DBA ‘through London Graduate School which is validated and awarded by UK Universities’ (which may be Buckingham).
Oxford Graduate College is based on the Osney Mead industrial estate, although the address is a shared service office. It offers degrees in Chaplaincy, Pastoral Counselling & Psychology, and Comparative theology at bachelors, masters and doctorate level. These area awarded by ‘Alpha University’ which is probably the one based in Florida which benefits from the curious situation that Florida doesn’t require religious universities to be accredited (a situation exploited previously by ‘Oxford City University‘)
Preparatory providers
There’s a long tradition of provision preparing people for university-level study, sometimes these were known as ‘crammers’, and among the large number of independent providers are several that focus on pathways. These include Carfax, Cherwell, Greene’s Oxford Tutorial College, Oxford International School and Oxford International Study Centre. EF offers a six to nine month university foundation alongside a host of different English language courses. There was a report last year that Oxford University was taking action in the courts against Oxford Royale Academy and Oxford Programs running summer schools because of including ‘Oxford’ in their names. Kings, Oxford offers foundation programmes without sounding much like a college…
Other other providers
The Maison Française d’Oxford is associated with the university, designed to create links between it and French universities. Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies are independent institutions which have various links with the university. The first two centres look like departments but the Centre for Islamic Studies is vast and looks like a college.
Then there are 39 colleges and 4 private public halls whose foundation dates range from the 1280s to the 2020s. They are not registered with the OfS, but they do have UKPRNs and some parts of the HE regulatory infrastructure point at them. For example they are members of the OIA complaint scheme and as constituent colleges of the university they are subject to the HE (Freedom of Speech) Act (but not any students’ unions they themselves might have). Although most of their students are matriculated at the University, they often have visiting students (some via the overseas providers above) and some run their own summer programmes. There’s a list here.
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