Are universities classed as public sector or private sector?
Technically, the Higher Education system in the UK is public sector, with one or two ‘private’ universities having very recently just been established. Although students now pay their fees, universities in England on the whole are funded mostly by Hefce (Higher Education Funding Council for England – there are separate ones such as Shefc – Scottish Higher Education Funding Council – for the other UK nations) and other funding comes from separate areas (eg the Training and Development Agency for teacher training programmes, the NHS for certain medical programmes). The funding is extremely complex and entertwined, but much public money goes into funding universities. So although individual students now bear the brunt of tuition fees, these only go a small but not insignificant way towards funding universities, hence their ‘public sector’ status. Like some other public sector agencies, some universities also have ‘charitable status’ – this affects the tax which the institution must pay. T
