Fees Announcement for 2026/27

Announcement of Student Fees to apply from August 2026

We are announcing today the fees which will apply to enrolments in the next academic year (from 01 August 2026 to 31 July 2027). We remain committed to providing value for money whilst ensuring the sustainability and financial health of the organisation.

We have aimed to keep fee increases minimal this year. We’ve absorbed a lot of the increased costs that we are facing, but some has to be passed on. Behind the scenes we are improving efficiency through AI within the organisation and continuing to invest in service improvements. 

Tuition fees make up the vast majority of OCA’s income. Increasing those fees is how we are able to cover increased costs. Our fees are therefore increasing by 5% on all undergraduate provision.

Undergraduate fees reflect what it costs to teach in the UK. The regulation landscape is challenging, with the requirements to align practices with the QAA Quality Code. The College became a full member of QAA from 2024/5 in order to ensure the institution adopts sector best practice.  

The uplift is required for the following reasons:

1. Changes to our Virtual Learning Environment – an increased cost in hosting suppliers to make the services better,  more robust and accessible to a greater number of students.
2. Operational costs to OCA rising either with or above inflation for staffing and services (software licenses, vendor fee increases etc.). These are challenging for smaller providers, in addition to expenditure on new resources in support of enhancing our programmes of study.
3. International student fees remain higher than those of our UK based students as there are greater operational costs to deliver and resource courses, we are doing our best to keep the increases as fair as possible. 

Student fees at the Open College of the Arts remain lower than other UK accredited Higher Education providers offering Creative Arts subjects via distance learning. At around 30% lower cost than a UK degree at a traditional university, they continue to represent excellent value for money. If you are concerned about the cost to study then there are many options for financial assistance for study including student finance, bursaries, payment plans and subsidies. For further information visit the funding FAQs section of the OCA website https://www.oca.ac.uk/studying-with-us/applying-to-oca/faqs/funding-faqs/.

Will Woods, Principal OCA