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Expand your learning horizons at our welcoming campuses - with dedicated learning spaces, industry standard facilities and experienced teachers to support you all the way.
Find out what it's like to study at an Activate Learning college and what makes us unique.
Discover how far you can go with our support.
Activate Learning is a forward-thinking education group working across further and higher education, schools, apprenticeships and training. We transform lives through learning.
Study an Access to HE course and earn the UCAS points you need to apply for a degree-level course in just 36 weeks of study.
Are you aged 19 or over and want to study for a degree, but don’t have the qualifications for it? Invest in yourself with an Access to Higher Education qualification.
An Access to HE programme is equal to three A Levels, giving you the UCAS points you need to apply for university-level study.
Programmes will last one year (36 weeks of study), after which you will have the diploma, knowledge, skills and confidence to study at degree level. Throughout the programme, you will experience the different kinds of learning that you need for university, including essay and report writing, giving presentations and participating in seminars.
You may choose to progress on to one of our higher education courses, including Foundation Degrees, BA Honours Degrees and the PGCE. Our programmes are run in conjunction with respected institutions such as Oxford Brookes University and Edexcel.
All Access to Higher Education programmes are accredited by national awarding body Ascentis.
Activate Learning has helped over 3,000 Access to HE students progress on to university. OFSTED rated us ‘good’ in December 2017, with many outstanding features for our Access programmes.
The Access to HE Diploma is your online gateway to higher education, and will give you the opportunity to apply for a wide range of university courses. However, universities and colleges have specific course entry requirements and it’s vital that you check what these are before applying.
We have a wide variety of options to help with costs associated to your studies. Find out more in our dedicated funding section.
To be eligible for a place on an Access to HE Online programme, you must have GCSE English and maths grade 4 (C equivalent) or above, or a Functional Skills Level 2 qualification.
As this is an online course, it is not possible to study maths and/or English at an Activate Learning college alongside the main qualification.
If you are aged 19 and over, and want to study a Level 3–6 course, you are eligible to apply for an Advanced Learner Loan to cover your tuition fees. The loans are not means-tested or subject to credit checks and you start repaying it when you earn over £25,000 per year.
The 19+ Advanced Learner Loan is easy to apply for and is not dependent on your household income. To be eligible to apply for it, you need to:
For more information regarding eligibility criteria, please visit www.gov.uk/advanced-learning-loans. General tuition fees for Access courses are as follows:
19–23 Concession EU tuition fee: NO CHARGE
24+ Loan EU tuition fee: £3,384.00
International fee: £6,700.00
The programme assumes no knowledge and therefore everything is gradual and taken a step at a time."
Louise has accepted an offer to study Physiotherapy at Oxford Brookes University.
What is a career pathway?
Education takes time and money. By giving you a clear view of what qualifications you need to get the job and the salary that you want, we take the stress out of learning.
Our Access to HE pathways open up the opportunity of university-level study for adult learners. We offer four pathways, each leading to related university and career options:
While the right qualifications can get you a job interview, it’s the attributes that we teach alongside your chosen programme that will get you the job. Click here to find out more about our Attributes and Learning Philosophy.
Reading College Summer Open Event
Bracknell and Wokingham College Summer Open Event
Banbury and Bicester College Summer Open Event
Our aim is to equip you to be successful in the job market,
whether you are heading for a job straight after your time at
college, plan to take a university-level programme first or are
already working in a part-time job.
What could my future job look like?
Job opportunities after Access to HE programmes are vast. Below are just a few examples of job titles and duties you could move on to after you complete your Access to HE Diploma and relevant university-level programme:
Search our Access to HE programmes
Industry partnerships
Access to Higher Education students at Activate Learning benefit from our many links with leading universities, such as the University of Reading, Oxford Brookes University, the University of Winchester and Southampton Solent University.
In autumn each year, access students take part in UCAS Takeover Week, with workshops run by universities on subjects such as personal statements and student finance.
We also hold two higher education fairs, with over 40 university exhibitors at Oxford and Reading.