One of the problems with the delay in HESA data is that it is difficult to tell whether blips are becoming trends. Domestic and international recruitment are changing quickly but if information is two years out of date it’s like trying to drive full speed on a motorway while looking in the rear-view mirror. My advice is not to try it.
There are some universities that have driven up international numbers in the short-term while presiding over declining domestic enrolments for several years. If any of the universities have chosen to follow a path of fewer domestic students and more international it would be reasonable for them to be explicit about how far they intended to go if Government policy had not changed. Being opportunistic and following the money to make ends meet is not quite the same as having a strategy.
A closer look at some universities also indicates a pattern of longer term restructuring, redundancies and cutbacks which suggests more fundamental problems. This should be the cause for discussion about the funding issues of individual universities rather than an appeal for a taxpayer underwritten handout to the whole sector. It may be that changes in attitudes to higher education, emerging workforce issues and developing global competition requires widespread restructuring.
In the following analysis the University of Hull’s enrolment figures from its annual report are used for consistency while the University of Kent and University of South Wales enrolment to 2021/22 are taken from HESA data with the fee income figure in the 2022/23 university annual report indicating the 2022/23 enrollment1.
Abundance from (over) the sea2
As noted in previous blogs the University of Hull’s performance in recruitment from Nigeria in 2021/22 delivered an uplift from 70 to 915 students year on year. It would be a surprise if the fall in visa applications for study driven by a decline in the naira and the loss of dependent visas for PGT students isn’t causing some alarm bells to ring. The university’s Annual Report and Statement of Accounts offers an insight suggesting the international enrolment bandwagon rolled on into 2022/23 although whether there was diversification of country of origin is not clear.
Full time International Tuition fee income grew by over £12m from 2020/21 to 2021/22 and then by a further £8m to 2022/23. The University’s figures indicate that it had 4,080 fewer “standard provision” domestic students in 2022/23 than 2017/18 – a fall of 30.8%. Domestic student enrollments appear to have fallen by 1,196 (11.6%) from 2021/22 to 2022/23 alone.
If domestic students are rejecting the University of Hull there seems to be a much more fundamental question to ask about its strategy, focus and future. This question should not be obscured simply because it can remain viable by recruiting international students whose main motivation is to secure post-study work.
Source: University of Hull Annual Report and Statement of Accounts
Since 2018/19 the university has had a “fundamental restructuring staff costs” line itemized in its expenditure and has spent £15.8m on this across the five years. Back in 2019 the university was suggesting that “One of the areas identified where we can be leaner and make efficiency savings, is in our professional services areas (i.e. non-academic areas such as support staff and back office functions).
The Staff by Major Category notes in the annual report show that the restructurings resulted in 239 fewer staff over five years with 132 lost from academic departments and 52 from central student services, while Central Admin has grown by 14. There may be a categorization issue but Academic Departments are down a net 96 on central admin and student services. If the growth in staff numbers in 2022/23 was driven by servicing growing numbers of international students, it is not surprising that there may be redundancies if numbers decline.
Source: University of Hull Annual Report and Statement of Accounts
Unconquered (yet)3
There is a similar but less financially successful story at the University of Kent which has recently joined the long list of institutions announcing redundancies. This is despite a five-year history of restructuring costs costing £25m and ending up, in total, with just seven fewer staff in 2022/23 than in 2018/19. The graph shows the relative movement of Academic, Research and Academic Related staff – down a net 56 when aggregated – while clerical are up 44. Back in July 2020 the University of Kent was reported to be considering cutting “almost 150 full-time jobs” but given its trajectory this seems to have been unsuccessful.
Source: University of Kent Financial Statements
Meanwhile, there has been an ongoing decline in domestic students stretching back over most of the period with a belated and modestly successful bid to increase international student fee income in the past two years. While the University does not give an update on its recruitment in the 2022/23 Annual Report and Financial Statements it does note circumstances “..resulting in an unexpected downturn in the number of students returning to complete their studies after the Summer 2022 break.” The direction of travel on the 2022/23 Full-time home tuition fees would suggest that things have not improved.
Sources: HESA for student numbers and University of Kent Financial Statements for fee income
Almost plaintively the 2022/23 Annual Report notes, “The University acknowledges that it can’t continue operating in a deficit position..” this is after four underlying deficits, of £12m (2022/23), £15.3m (2021/22), £12m (2019/20), and £7.9m (2018/19), in the last five years. The report goes on to say that the forecast for 2023/24 “… is that we will again make a deficit, of approximately £31m..”. There must surely be fundamental questions about the university’s long-term viability or at the very least whether the management team is capable of bringing it back to sustainability.4
Success through endeavour (and international recruitment)5
The University of South Wales was formed in 2013 from the University of Glamorgan and the University of Wales, Newport. Over the past five years the number of full-time UK students has fallen at an accelerating rate from 13,405 to 12,915 according to HESA data. The Home/EU tuition fee income posted for 2022/23 suggests that the story will continue the same trend.
However, since 2019/20 the University has increased its full-time international student population from 1445 to 3625. Again, the income in 2022/23 indicates that the trend will have continued. One of the key questions is whether international student recruitment is simply being used to paper over fundamental issues about the University’s attraction to home students, its purpose and its future.
Sources: HESA for student numbers and University of South Wales Financial Statements for tuition income
When the University of South Wales announced redundancies in 2024 the reasoning suggested by vice-chancellor Dr Ben Calvert was that it’s “…due to a significant rise in non-returning students and running costs.” Digging deeper suggests that the university may have more deep-rooted problems. Back in 2022 the issue was the same, with Dr Calvert saying, “We have seen a 6.1% decrease in our returning students compared to last year.” It is claimed elsewhere that the Newport campus has faced a 75% drop in students since 2010 with suggestions that 10,000 has become 2,500.
Back in 2017 the university announced that 137 redundancies were required “..as it [the university] tried to balance rising costs with an expected drop in students” but the number of redundancies became 57 after negotiation. This came after the opening, in 2014 and then closure in 2015, of a London campus that failed to recruit any students but received investment despite, it is claimed, the Carleon campus in Wales being closed with 145 jobs at risk. This feels like an institution that has long-term, fundamental issues requiring attention.
Finding Ways Forward
There may be good reasons, at each university, for every decision but the histories here reinforce that the UK higher education sector is a patchwork of individual institutions who have specific histories. geographies and problems. There seems enough evidence, in some institutions, of management travelling hopefully or being ill-equipped to be effective and there are questions as to whether the governance role of University councils is adequate. It certainly seems unlikely that there are a sufficient number of high-quality decision makers available to lead more than 150 institutions working in complex and volatile markets.
A blank cheque underwritten by the taxpayer is unlikely to solve some of the structural problems in the sector. It certainly wouldn’t resolve problems caused by poor management decisions, overly optimistic forecasting, or deep-seated domestic student enrolment problems. Neither would it solve any problems caused by declining student demand for higher education or for specific universities and what they offer.
If the answer to the financial issues in the sector is international recruitment then there should probably be a dialogue about the type of recruitment and the work-force implications. Given the national implications this should not be left to the wit or aspirations of individual institutions. There may be a rational decision for Government to make that means international students are explicitly and openly encouraged so that agreed numbers of domestic students can be recruited at an acceptable cost to taxpayers.
Allocating capped international numbers against specific universities should not be too difficult a task and could consider the local economy’s ability to sustain and house them. It is no secret that some parts of the UK job-market would struggle without international graduates taking roles but it seems reasonable that they are not used as a means of depressing wages. There might even be merit in following the Australian example of extended post-study work for international students working in specific localities.
NOTES
- The assumption is that as the domestic fee for domestic undergraduates has not changed between years and domestic PG numbers are relatively small, any significant decline in domestic fee income is aligned with a decline in domestic enrollments. It seems to work for years up to 2022/23 and the HESA data, if it ever arrives, will give us a fuller picture.
- Hull History Centre tells us that the city of Kingston upon Hull (usually referred to as Hull) does not have a motto. A heraldry enthusiast offered both in 1946 with the Latin, Mare Copia (Abundance from the Sea). A tweak seems appropriate in the context of international student recruitment.
- The motto of the county of Kent is the Latin, Invicta (Unconquered). Recent performance – both financial and in recruitment terms – might mean that the university cannot claim the same.
- The University of Kent President and vice-chancellor, Professor Karen Cox, resigned this month after being in the role since 2017. Views on her tenure can be read on Kent Online.
- Success through Endeavour is the motto of the University of South Wales. It seems appropriate to note that the Welsh translation offered by Googe Translate is Llwyddiant trwy ymdrech.
As always, the blog attempts to understand, interpret and offer an honest opinion on the data available in the context of broader issues in higher education. In the event that there are any errors of fact or interpretation a correction will be made if an authoritative response is provided to the author.
Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay
