OU reins in Tesco points payments

Under the arrangement introduced in February 2007, students have been able to use tokens awarded through shopping at the supermarket to help to pay for courses.

Last night the Open University said it would limit the scheme to first year (Level One) students after originally introducing the arrangement to encourage people to try OU courses.

Some existing students fear it may financially squeeze out those already doing degrees.

A Facebook page entitled Tesco and the OU – Every little doesn’t help students! has so far gained about 1,000 members, with students expressing concerns.

Will Swann, director of students at the Open University, said: “The scheme has been very successful but in the current economic climate, the university has to re-evaluate its budgets and 80 per cent of students paying for courses with Reward Tokens are existing OU students – not new students to the OU.”

The OU said almost 48,000 of its current students already receive financial help – 26 per cent of its student base.

By the end of last year, Tesco reward tokens were used as either full or part payment on more than 16,000 courses.

A Tesco spokesman said: “The changes are being made by the OU not Tesco.”