Changes to policy and curriculum

Fee Rules 2016/17 (February 2016 update)

Warning: the content within this page reflects the information available to students in the 2015/16 academic year. As such, this information may no longer be factually accurate.

In February 2016 some changes were made to the 'Fee refunds and fee credits policy' sections of all versions of the 2016/17 Fee Rules. These changes relate specifically to fee credits and will be applied to all modules starting in or after August 2016.

These changes will affect students who start a module after 1 August 2016 and choose to defer or withdraw from that module after they have become liable to pay the module fee.

The changes made

• The amount of fee credit available has changed.
• If a student decides to defer or withdraw from study after they've become liable to pay the module fee they will be entitled to a fee credit towards future study of 25 percent of the total module fee. Previously, the amount of fee credit available was affected by the date of the withdrawal or deferral; the later a student deferred or withdrew, the smaller the amount of fee credit they were offered.
• The period for which the fee credit is valid has been reduced to 13 months. This means that students can only use the fee credit towards a module with a start date within 13 months of the start date of the module from which they deferred or withdrew.

In most cases students can only use the fee credit towards a later start date of the module from which they deferred or withdrew. The only exception is if they withdrew or deferred from their first module with The Open University. In this situation, a student may use the fee credit towards any Open University module.

Please talk to your Student Support Team if you need any further information. You can find out how to contact them on Contact the OU.