The Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (c. 29) was enacted into law in the United Kingdom by the Houses of Parliament on 27 April 2017.

[4] The Office for Students (OfS) is established in the Act broadly as a replacement for the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

[8] The paper proposed a new regulatory system, headed by an Office for Students, and gave more detail on the future of the recently-introduced Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), and how it would be linked with tuition fees.

They voted that there should be additional constraints for entry to the higher education market to prevent profit-motivated providers gaining access too easily, to the detriment of students and the sector.

[18] The amended Bill was voted on in both houses on 27 April 2017, then received royal assent as the Higher Education and Research Act later that day.

[19] Baroness Wolf, previously an adviser to the government, expressed concern that "sweeping general legislation might make it easier to set up a really small, innovative, educationally wonderful institution, but it’s much more likely to mean we end up with the American-style catastrophe".

Cambridge professor Gill Evans stated that "they tend to go for what can be taught cheaply to a mass market", and that the majority of current private providers are only offering courses up to level 5, rather than full degrees.

[22] The government has hit back at critics, with Jo Johnson saying existing universities are merely afraid of competition, and are "acting like bouncers deciding who should and should not be let into the club".

[23] The government position is that the increased competition, and the link between teaching quality and tuition fees, will force existing universities to improve.