Student Numbers and Fees Group

Student Numbers and Fees is a sub-group of the Academic Planning and Resources Committee. It reviews student number plans, fee levels and related issues three times a year.

Background

The Academic Planning and Resources Committee (APRC) Terms of Reference assign the following roles to SNAF and the subsidiary groups:

• The SNAF group meets at least three times per year to review the assumptions in the Rolling Plan as the basis for medium and long term planning of student numbers and related issues (including fee levels, financial awards and offer targets).
• Scholarships Group: A sub-group of SNAF, the Scholarships group reports on scholarship expenditure against allocations and considers revisions to the various schemes.

Rolling Plan

The Rolling Plan was adopted by the APRC as the basis for student number planning in May 2001. The main objectives of the Rolling Plan are to ensure that those involved in the admissions process are made aware of the School’s plans as early as possible in the admissions cycle and to provide a central source of information. While it is acknowledged that adjustments might need to be made in the light of experience, it is also recognised that there are key deadlines, after which decisions to revise targets and related factors could result in:

• Some disruption to the admissions process and hence some risk to the School's income (implying that changes after that point should not be taken lightly);
• Intolerable disruption to the admissions process and hence serious risk to the School's income (implying that changes after that point should only be taken when absolutely necessary

Further Rolling Plan information and documents can be found here.

SNAF sub-groups

In recent sessions several new sub-groups of SNAF have been formulated to focus on key areas of the work of the SNAF group. These include the Admissions Group; the Programme Viability Group; and the Scholarships Group:

Admissions Group

Chaired by the Pro-Director Planning and Resources, and with members from Student Recruitment, Admissions, Financial Support and Planning meets fortnightly between February and August to analyse the recruitment position for the current academic cycle. The number of Financial Undertaking Forms (FUFs) received and decision responses (acceptances and declines) are used to predict the likely registration numbers for the coming academic year.

Programme Viability Group

Established in October 2014 to help inform discussions relating to the future size and shape of the School. The Group initially focussed on the relative “health”, or viability, of taught postgraduate programmes in terms of demand levels; the competitive position of degree programmes; decliner data; improvements to the existing programme viability scores; and the rationalisation of programme offerings at the School. Work in this area is being extended to undergraduate programmes.

Further Programme Viability information and documents can be found here.

The Scholarships sub-group

Meets to discuss matters relating to scholarship expenditure against allocations, the setting up of any new schemes, as well as revisions to existing schemes. 

These three sub-groups report to SNAF throughout the academic year. Any recommendations from the sub-groups are considered by SNAF before being reported to the APRC.

Contact

For queries and matters relating to SNAF or its sub-groups contact the SNAF secretary Emily Jackson (E.Jackson2@lse.ac.uk).