As a sign of the growth of for-profit higher-education providers in Britain, on Monday the first private institution in the country was awarded the title of “university college,” with the announcement that BPP College of Professional Studies is to become BPP University College. The institution’s owner, BPP Ltd., was taken over last year by the Apollo Group, the American parent company of the for-profit University of Phoenix, and the announcement “signals the government’s desire to expand the number of profit-making private-sector institutions in higher education,” reports The Guardian. University colleges are smaller than universities and offer a limited range of degrees. Britain’s universities, all but one of which are largely publicly financed, are reeling from the impact of the most severe cost-cutting in a generation, and “expanding the private sector is seen by the government as a way of tackling the financial pressures and lack of places facing the university system,” the BBC reports.  A recent report highlighted the for-profit providers’ potential for rapid growth. BPP became the first company in Britain to be given the power to award higher-education degrees less than three years ago. Britain’s main faculty union responded to the news by issuing a statement warning that “private companies have no tradition of academic freedom” and calling attention a new survey which it said shows that 96 percent of academics “do not believe it should be easier for private companies to call themselves universities.”