Paying for Further Education. Mendip Papers 002.

This paper explores the range of sources of funding for further education (FE) provision in the United Kingdom through maintained colleges. A description of the pre-1990 procedures, including the resource assumptions of central government funding of further education in the United Kingdom is included. An indication is given of the advice proffered by the local authorities to central government with regard to FE. Both the political question of how much to spend (or rather the degree and grounds for year-to-year variation), and the shifting relationships between the key players of central and local government, are discussed. Among the other items discussed are: (1) the forecasting of FE expenditure; (2) identifying the need to spend for FE; (3) the new machinery that has been put into place for determining central government funding; and (4) national issues that occasionally arise and influence public sector funding. Finally, other sources of income are highlighted in terms of major clusters of educational endeavors that have distinctly different resource demands; and other income generation such as fees paid by students and employers to publicly subsidized programs, full-cost courses, or self-funding activities. (GLR)