Does a full-time degree whose in-person attendance falls only at weekends count as “distance learning”? On 10 August 2026 the Administrative Court concluded that it does — so students on such courses were never eligible for maintenance grants or loans. In Bath Spa University & Ors v Secretary of State for Education & Anor [2026] EWHC 2129 (Admin), Mr Justice Johnson refused permission to claim judicial review on all four grounds.
What the case was about
Five universities — Bath Spa, Buckinghamshire New, Leeds Trinity, London Metropolitan and Southampton Solent — introduced weekend-only degrees between 2018 and 2024. They require 21 hours of study a week over at least 24 term-time weeks, at least six of them in-person attendance falling only at weekends (para 14). The Department for Education estimates 22,000 students were on them in 2025-26, receiving around £330m in support; had full recovery been required, some would have owed up to £74,000 (para 19).
Not being registered as distance learning, they attracted maintenance support. On 20 March 2026 the Secretary of State instructed the Student Loans Company to reclassify them, stop payments and recover past ones, and April payments were blocked (para 29). A letter of 23 March 2026 communicated the decision under challenge (para 30). Grant recovery was later abandoned, loan overpayments moved into the income-contingent system (paras 32, 36); 80% of affected students transferred to weekday attendance (para 37). Grounds 1 to 3 centred on regulation 2 of the Education (Student Support) Regulations 2011, under which a requirement to be in attendance “is not satisfied by” a requirement to attend for registration, enrolment or examination, “on a weekend or during any vacation”, or “on an occasional basis during the week” (para 59).
What the High Court decided
Interpretation is an objective question for the court, turning on the intention imputed to the legislation’s maker, not any policy view (paras 96, 97). Read naturally, each of the 24 annual weekend attendance requirements falls within limb (b) and must be disregarded, leaving no attendance requirement at all (para 102). Sections 6(c) and 23(1) of the Interpretation Act 1978 make “a weekend” cover weekends generally (para 103). Notably, limb (c) qualifies weekday attendance as “occasional” while limb (b) has no equivalent qualification — a deliberate legislative choice (para 107). Listing categories of disregarded attendance, rather than defining distance learning by the absence of regular attendance, pointed to a future-proofed definition rather than one tied to the Open University model (para 113). The guidance was descriptive, not definitional, and practice cannot displace a clear meaning (paras 115, 117). The claimants’ own reading would itself be absurd: 16 hours over one weekend would be distance learning, an hour on two Saturdays in-attendance (para 122).
Legitimate expectation failed for two independent reasons: the guidance pointed back to the Regulations and made no clear, unambiguous promise (para 126), and no expectation can compel payments the scheme forbids (paras 128, 129). The rationality challenge was almost two to some eight years out of time, an extension was refused (paras 92, 95); and would have failed anyway, weekday attendance being a rational proxy for constrained employment (para 145). On reinstatement, the universities lacked standing because the payments are payable to students, not to them (paras 152, 153), and no unlawful delay was shown (para 159).
Why it matters
- Words saying what to disregard do real work. The Court rejected treating the exclusions as merely “for the avoidance of doubt”, or reading them down by reference to the drafter’s paradigm (paras 104, 113).
- Guidance cannot displace clear statutory language. Guidance and sector practice could neither alter the meaning nor found a legitimate expectation (paras 115, 117, 126).
- Ultra vires expectations cannot be enforced. Once it was accepted there was no power to pay the ground could not succeed, and A1P1 did not rescue a claim for further payments (paras 129, 130).
- Time ran from when the provision first bit. Here it ran from each university’s first weekend-only registration, not the 2026 decision (paras 90, 92).
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Read the full judgment: Bath Spa University & Ors v Secretary of State for Education & Anor [2026] EWHC 2129 (Admin) (The National Archives).