Chiswick College Accused of Student Loan Fraud

University of Northampton claims it knowingly allowed cheating

Chiswick College no longer operates from the premises on Great West Road. Picture: Google Streetview

March 31, 2025

Details of a major dispute between a private college that was based by Chiswick Roundabout and its partner, the University of Northampton have come to light.

Chiswick College, which up until recently had premises at 3 Great West Road, had entered into an agreement with the university in 2020 to provide diplomas and degrees in business management for which the students were charged £9,250. This money was then paid to them by the Student Loan Company.

The Sunday Times has been running an ongoing investigation into ‘franchised’ universities which has revealed abuse of the university loan system in which students enrol in courses not intending to study and planning never to pay the loans back.

The newspaper’s reporters discovered High Court documents lodged in 2023 in which the university accused Chiswick College of “knowingly and deliberately [recruiting] students who appeared unlikely to succeed in the educational courses … due to the extent of their prior learning and/or language skills”.

In the belief of the university’s staff, Chiswick College was recruiting students often from Bangladesh with inadequate language skills who were unlikely to succeed on its courses. It alleged that people working on building sites were approached to sign up for degrees in business management.

Staff from the university visited their partner institution in May 2022 and, despite a prior request to interview 67 students, none attended. This prompted a full investigation and the academic submissions of 1,397 of the 1,520 which had enrolled with it through Chiswick College were reviewed. The university claims that in 1,232 cases there was evidence of ‘contract cheating’ in which the work had clearly been done by someone else through so-called ‘essay mills’. In its submission the university accused arranging or at least being aware of and approving of widespread cheating. The agreement with Chiswick College was terminated in 2022.

The documents presented to the court show that the university is also alleging that the CVs submitted by students were often clearly plagiarised with details lifted from the internet.

Chiswick College called the allegations embarrassing and said that all the students ‘possessed or appear to possess’ prior qualifications to support their application. It rejected any claims of wrong doing calling the university’s claims as ‘demonstrably unreasonable’ and contended that it was the university’s responsibility to determine if the qualifications of the students it admitted were adequate.

Following the termination of its contract, Chiswick College sued for breach of contract asking for £8.5million in damages and claiming £1.2million for paid invoices for tuition. The university countersued and said that it could not make further payments to the college because of risk of prosecution under the Proceeds of Crime Act. Both legal actions were settled out of court last September.

A spokesman for the University of Northampton that it “had a short-lived agreement with Chiswick College which we terminated in 2022 following our investigations into the college’s operations. We swiftly reported our concerns to the relevant authorities, including the Office for Students.

Its latest accounts show that it was required to pay back the Student Loan Company £6million due to “suspected widespread academic misconduct”.

Chiswick College appears to have ceased to trade, and another private college is now operating from the building on Great West Road.