A Pathway Through Open Doors

The IEE Open Doors Annual Data Release for 2024/25 is on 17 November but anyone interested in getting up to date on how Fall 2025 has gone can get plenty of insight from individual university websites.  Given the recent seismic changes in Canadian government policies the broader North America enrollment situation is also worth considering.

One lens is that of the pathway operators who have found life in Canada and the US increasingly tough going over recent years. Many have shifted emphasis to provide direct recruitment as a way of mitigating risks and optimising the use of their recruitment capabilities. It’s interesting to see what happens when both strands of revenue are challenged.  

Shorelight

The pathway operator with the largest exposure is Shorelight.  The company shifted its business substantially to an aggregator type, direct recruitment model around 2022 and currently claims access to 98 universities offering undergraduate study and 62 offering postgraduate study.  Within these groups there are 12 undergraduate and 10 postgraduate pathways offered (compared to 14 and 12, respectively, in 2022).

There isn’t a great deal of public information about the value of the company or its trading performance.  However, one indicator of the scale of problems facing the business comes from Huron Consulting, which has invested $40.9m in Shorelight since 2014.  Huron considered that investment to be worth, at “fair value”, $62.3m on December 31, 2024 but announced in its October 2025 filing, that it had reduced the value of the investment to $32.8m. 

It noted: “The total decrease in fair value of $29.6 million in the first nine months of 2025 was driven by a decrease in the projected cash flows of Shorelight, which reflects the current federal regulatory environment in which Shorelight operates.”

Even ignoring inflation the investment is considered to be worth less than it was a decade ago.  Huron continue to consider the investment “as an available-for-sale debt security.”  Whether there would be any buyers is a different question.

Navitas

The latest financial statement and report of Marron Holdings, parent company of Navitas,  covered the financial year ending 30 June 2025 and “..reflects the prevailing market conditions in Canada impacting future performance and cash flows..”.  With operational entities in Canada (as well as Queen’s College in New York) Navitas is impacted, as the report indicates, by “..declining student numbers due to government-imposed student caps and visa restrictions across our campuses.”  So, how bad is it?

One measure is that the University Partnerships North America (UPNA) “cash generating unit” of the Navitas operation saw an impairment charge of $134m on its $435m carrying valuation.  This presumes a “recoverable value” of $300m, if the business was sold, which might be considered optimistic in the current circumstances.

The Marron report suggests that there is an expectation of “a meaningful recovery in new student enrollments” in 2028.  The IRCC 2026-2028 Immigration Levels Plan suggest student visa targets will stabilize at around 150,000 in 2027 and 2028.  With PhD and Masters students enrolling at public institutions now exempted from the federal study permit caps from 2026 it is plausible that relief may come sooner.

However, the broader picture in Canada remains challenging and reputation can be hard to recover even at public university level.  Navitas partner Simon Fraser University’s reporting of Fall 2025 enrollment suggests continuing long-term decline at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.  The 2025 count is shown as incomplete but there is no reason to believe that the situation will improve much this year.

Bar chart displaying enrollment data at Simon Fraser University from Fall 2021 to Fall 2025, comparing undergraduate and graduate headcounts by visa type.

A further indication of the developing issues in North America is that the Navitas owned SAE Institute, which covers creative, media and IT education and has courses in several countries including five locations in the US, has also seen its enrollments decline.  An impairment charge of $52.5m to the Institute’s carrying value of $104.2m has been recognized.

INTO University Partnerships

The story of INTO’s changing fortunes in the US has been explored over a long period. After being a trail blazer for deeply embedded joint ventures it was first overtaken and then saw several partnerships fall away. One way of expressing the decline is that in 2019 the North America share of the company’s turnover was 41.6% (£37.3m) but by 2024 it was only 23.2% (£32.9m).

There now appear to be four genuine joint ventures from a stable that boasted 12 in 2018.  In recent months a senior US business development figure and a US operations VP have disappeared from the company’s website. Fall 2025 may signal another step backwards in the fortunes of its remaining pathway operations. 

The ten-year trend at Oregon State University (OSU) shows the long-term picture with Fall 2025 reporting indicating that the pathway venture has fallen back to COVID level enrollments.

Line graph showing student enrollment trends at INTO Oregon State University from 2015 to 2025, with categories for Academic English, General English, Graduate Pathways, OSU CAP, UG Pathways, and total enrollment.

A five-year analysis of the main countries of recruitment suggests a degree of volatility and continuing decline in several key markets.

Bar chart illustrating the main countries of student recruitment for INTO Oregon State University from 2021 to 2025, with data for Taiwan, China, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Japan, Kuwait, India, and South Korea.

Anybody thinking that a shift from Pathway to Direct Recruitment offers significant opportunities would be disappointed.  OSU’s own graph below shows the continuing decline and that international students as a percentage of total enrollment is, at 5.6%, below 2010 levels. 

Line graph depicting international student enrollment at a university from 2009 to 2025, showing trends for undergraduate and graduate students alongside total enrollment numbers.

The picture at INTO George Mason is similar and there have been unsubstantiated rumours that a change in the relationship is being discussed with possible announcements early in 2026.  Three years of declinging enrollment at the pathway centre might suggest a new approach is needed.   Time will tell.

Bar graph illustrating INTO George Mason University student enrollment from 2019 to 2025, showing undergraduate (blue), graduate (orange), and total (green) enrollment figures.

The situation at Drew University was highlighted in a recent blog and there is no Fall 2025 update to give further illumination.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) joint venture shows some volatility over the past three years. The University’s reporting indicates that Fall 2024 was distorted by a class of 42 in Academic English compared to six and one in the years either side.  From 2023 to 2025 the INTO entity has seen enrollment decline by 58.4% (77 down to 32).

Bar chart displaying INTO University of Alabama Birmingham Fall Enrollment data for 2023 to 2025, with separate colors for undergraduate, graduate, and total enrollment.

At a UAB level enrollment of international students has also shown a sharp decline of 15% in Fall 2025 with graduate enrollment particularly hard hit.   

Bar chart showing the nonresident student enrollment at the University of Alabama Birmingham from 2021 to 2025, distinguished by undergraduate and graduate numbers.

The other issue for INTO is that its dispute with the University of South Florida continues to rumble on with a non-jury hearing has been scheduled for 6-24 April 2026.  A pre-trial conference is scheduled for 3 March 2026.  There have been a number of blogs covering developments along the way and one update is that in March 2025 the District Court of Appeal supported the Circuit Court’s decision on several issues in favour of USF Financing Corporation.

Readers of previous blogs will have seen that some of INTO’s financial claims against USF have been underpinned by expert opinion which reflected a robust view on growth in international enrollment and revenue in the US.  Given the performance of current partners reflected in the data above it will be interesting to see how that opinion is received in any hearing.

Top of the Ninth and Heading for the Eleventh?

Before the UK and Australia get too far ahead in congratulating themselves it’s worth reminding everyone that Yogi Berra famously said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” And in international recruitment it’s never over.

The recent baseball World Series saw the Los Angeles Dodgers come back with a game tying home run in the ninth innings to tie before going on to win in the eleventh innings in the deciding game against the Toronto Blue Jays.  That was after the Blue Jays had come from behind against the Seattle Mariners to win the American League Championship.  Despite recent setbacks it remains entirely possible that both Canada and the US could be winning the international student world series home at some point in the next few years. 

The US is, under the right circumstances, the preferred destination of the brightest, the best and probably the largest number of international students.  There are continuing echoes of the H-1B visa discussion around the need for more highly skilled workers in the US and there are statements about the speeding of processes around green cards and visas.  Canada has shown that it can grow international numbers rapidly and it may be recalibrating to be able to offer a sustainable and attractive offer, including routes to citizenship, to international students.

Notes

As always the blog reflects my understanding of a range of data. Any authoritative comments or views with different interpretations are welcome.

Image by Brigitte Werner from Pixabay

Pathway Dancing in the Dark

Major changes in visa and immigration policy have shaken the world of international recruitment in the past 18 months.  Many universities have complained that even when the direction of policy is clear the detail and potential severity is uncertain.  For the major pathway operators whose business model is almost wholly based on international recruitment it’s like dancing in the dark in a room full of sharp edges.

This blog focuses on data provided by accounts filed by INTO University Partnerships (INTO) for its UK pathway operations which offer a consistent insight into enrollment numbers at each location over time.  Along with reasonable insights from its US partners these offer a good sense of how the world is treating international pathway operators in two major markets.  If time allows I’ll be having a deeper dive into other operators – there are some emerging signs of stress.

Dancing with Myself

INTO measures itself on five key metrics in its annual Accounts.  It’s appropriate for readers to familiarize themselves with what adjustments are being made to understand the full picture but at face value a six-year summary suggests only a slow recovery after the interruption of Covid. The cash figure (shown on a separate axis) suggests that operations are still needing support. 

Bar chart depicting the key performance indicators for INTO University Partnerships, showing adjusted turnover, adjusted EBITDA, net EBITDA, and underlying group profit from 2019 to 2024, with a separate axis illustrating cash figures.

INTO’s turnover by region reflects longer-term struggles in the US compared to the UK.  The single partnership in Australia, signed with G8 member the University of Western Australia in 2021, is showing early growth but is not a joint venture.  With the recently re-elected Labour Government in Australia expected to implement “..fee hikes and stricter processes”  and changes already implemented in 2024 “starting to slow” international student growth it is one to watch.

Bar chart illustrating INTO University Partnerships turnover by region from 2019 to 2024, showing data for the UK, North America, and Australia.

Source: INTO University Partnerships Company Accounts. (NB: Excludes statutory turnover and share of joint ventures’ turnover)

Quick Quick Slow in UK?

After the hurry-scurry to sign up partners up until around 2014 there has been a slow decline in the 50-50, deeply embedded joint venture model championed by INTO.  Several have closed – including at the universities of Gloucestershire, St Georges, Glasgow Caledonian as well as Newcastle London and UEA London – and INTO now has the controlling interesting in the INTO Newcastle University venture.  The situation at INTO City is more complex with both INTO and City University holding equal voting rights but the University only being entitled to 15% share of any profit.

All that being said, the UK-based ventures still reporting publicly in 2024 show that post pandemic recovery is slow and enrollments are well below the 2019 and 2020 numbers.  We know with reasonable certainty that UK universities have had a difficult international enrollment cycle in 2024/25 so there may not be much good news even with universities where direct enrollment is allowed.  Over and above that the Labour government does not appear to be letting up on dampening international student growth.   

Of the entities shown below INTO had outstanding, interest-bearing loans to INTO UEA, INTO Queen’s and INTO Stirling totalling £7.65m.  Until the 2021/2022 accounts INTO indicated these inter-company arrangements with joint ventures as them being either a debtor or creditor.  In 2018/19 the three were debtors to the tune of £3.97m. 

Bar graph showing the enrollments for INTO Ventures with UK universities from 2019 to 2024. Different colored bars represent data for each year.

Source: Joint Venture Accounts

It’s not all gloom and doom though.  INTO has two wholly owned pathway operations in the UK and the Manchester venue has boomed since 2021 while the London World Education Centre has returned to 2020 levels.  It will be interesting to see whether the Manchester operation is affected after losing Manchester Metropolitan University as a partner to Navitas ahead of recruitment for 2025/26.  Another one to wait and watch on is the 100% owned operation in collaboration with Lancaster University – it reported an operating loss of £2.6m in 2023/24 ahead of the “first main cohort” joining in September 2024.

Bar chart showing student enrollment numbers from 2019 to 2024 for INTO's wholly owned UK pathways, with data for INTO Manchester in blue and INTO WEC in orange.

Source: Company Accounts

Last Waltz in the US?

INTO burst onto the US scene with seven university partners and a US private equity partner investing £66m for a 25% stake between 2008 and 2015 but then found itself being surpassed as an operator by Shorelight.  INTO peaked with 12 partners in 2018 (although Hofstra has never been listed as a joint venture in INTO’s annual report) of which five pathways are now shuttered and two, at St Louis University and Suffolk University, have become wholly owned.  The pivot to direct recruitment sees 22 US options listed on its website compared to over 100 for Shorelight.

My blog reviewing enrollments in Fall 2024 at Oregon State University, St Louis University, George Mason University and University of Alabama – Birmingham, showed that only UAB was making any real headway on international student recruitment.  The four ventures all have interest bearing loans from INTO and these appear to have receded to pre-COVID levels. 

Bar chart illustrating US partner debtor/loan amounts for Oregon State University, Mason, Drew, UAB, and total from 2019 to 2024.

Source: INTO University Partnerships Financial Reports (NB: INTO’s classification of the year-end financial relationship with joint ventures changed in 2022/23 to show loans where previously the term debtors had been used.)

Since the blog noted above, I have been able to find enrollment data for Drew University whose joint venture partnership with INTO began in 2015.  After solid numbers above 100 from 2016 to 2020 there has been a steep decline in enrollments. 

Bar chart showing INTO Drew University enrollments from 2016 to 2024, with annual data indicating fluctuations in student numbers over the years.

Source: Drew University Consolidated Financial Report (students as at June of the year)

Casting a further shadow over the US operation is the litigation with the University of South Florida which has continued into a third year.  The bill “in respect of disputes” noted in INTO’s accounts has risen from £550k in 2021/22 to £2.1m in 2023/24.  It may not all be related to the USF case but this seems likely to be a major driver.

To outline the current state of the case is well beyond the scope of this blog.  Some features would be that both sides are currently arguing over the validity of the reports made by each other’s expert witnesses and one element of the case has been appealed to the District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District (Case Number: 2D2025-0798).  As far as I have been able to follow, the trial remains set for August 2025 but there is a pre-trial conference in July and before that there is a meeting where one item is to “Discuss the possibility of settlement”.

My last major update on the case was in June 2024.  At that point the suggestion of $71.6m in damages being claimed in damages by INTO gave some sense of what was at stake.  It remains to be seen how this plays out.

Image by Colin Behrens from Pixabay

With Thought and Purity

Dundee is famous as the city of “jute, jame and journalism” but may have achieved notoriety after the near insolvency of its university and the very public bail out from public funds.  The Beano and Dandy were popular comics produced here but a leadership that seemed to act like Lord Snooty and his Pals ended up looking more like Desperate Dan and Roger the Dodger.  What is interesting is that Interim Vice Chancellor Professor Shane O’Neill is on the record as saying, “Reliance on international tuition fees is the main reason for Dundee’s financial crisis. It devastated our income.”

Perhaps that makes it unsurprising that pathway provider Oxford International Education Group appears to have taken the decision to excise details of the performance of its operation at the university in the accounts for the year to August 2024.  Parent company Sparrowhawk 2 Limited, which is a subsidiary of German private equity investor THI Holdings GmbH, is only too pleased to tell us that new partners, Edinburgh Napier University and University of Kent, launched in 2023/24 are “generating significant revenues”.  But then you dig a little deeper and you find that the reticence about performance of individual operations goes even deeper.

The 2023/24 annual accounts for embedded University Partnerships – Bradford International College, Greenwich International College, Bangor International College, Kent International College and Edinburgh Napier – have been similarly obfuscated. I have no doubt it is allowable but it’s really not very helpful and when people hide things they used to share it makes one wonder why.  The one remaining example of transparency – De Montfort University (LIPC) may give us a clue about the reasons.

Basically, the graph showing turnover suggests that 2022/23 saw an extraordinary surge in terms of recruitment with a very sharp correction then happening in 2023/24.  Any defender of the higher education sector surely has to query whether De Montfort University, the ultimate beneficiary of progressing students, was aware of and/or supportive of this growth? Even more importantly, did they build future expectations of similar numbers of progressing students into their financial forecasts?    

Source: LIPC Accounts

Meanwhile, at Dundee, there is a way of approximating what might have happened. I always hold any leads or comments confidentially but I am grateful to colleagues who raised the possibility.  It makes for a revealing picture. 

The March 2024 QAA Review Report of ICD (International College Dundee) tells us that enrollment rose gradually from 41 in 2017/18 to 152 in 2021/22.  Numbers then more than doubled to 318 in 2022/23.  At the time of the review the number enrolled was 70.  It seems likely that most, if not all, of the enrollment for the year was complete.

If that is correct, ICD was down around 150 students year on year.  This would have meant that a similar number were gone from the pipeline to the university and that ICD’s operating profit/loss may have been similar to 2019 (a loss of £281k).  I would, of course, be happy to be corrected on any of this by an authoritative source prepared to share and verify definitive numbers.

Source: QAA

With so many UK universities having pathway partners it seems possible that many institutions are not paying sufficient attention to the possibility of progression numbers being met.  Commercial pathway operators are likely to be at least as gung-ho as universities about their recruitment but if institutions are blithely building those numbers into revenue forecasts there is significant risk.  It seems unlikely that this risk will decline as the Government focuses ever more intently on student visas.

NOTES

  1. The City of Dundee’s motto is “Prudentia et Candore” which translates to “With thought and purity”.  Extraordinarily for a city of 148,000 people it has it has two professional football clubs Dundee United and Dundee Football Club.  United reached the final of the UEFA Cup in 1987.
  2. The Beano and The Dandy are almost impossible to describe to anyone who hasn’t seen them.  I can only recommend getting hold of some back copies and being appropriately delighted or appalled.
  3. As noted, I would be happy to have (in confidence) a discussion with anybody able to provide definitive alternative data on any issues raised. If there is a reasonable cause for correction I will carry it as an update in this blog.  

Image by Davie Bicker from Pixabay

Catastrophe or Correction for University Jobs?

As the clamour around redundancies in the higher education sector grows it is difficult to see where financial distress starts and misleading data ends.  In January this year Patrick Jack claimed in the Times Higher that in 2023/24, “..severance payments, which do not reflect the whole of the sector, affected about 10,300 employees – up from 7,300 the year before..”.  The implication is that there were nearly 17,500 job losses over two years with more to come in 2024/25.

The problem is that, if the sector’s returns to HESA are accurate, this claim is misleading.  While it is entirely possible that individuals will have taken severance as universities restructure there may have been many new jobs recreated.  A recent LinkedIn posting by Colin Bailey of Queen Mary University of London claimed 66 job vacancies with Queen Mary’s UCU branch countering that there are 59 redundancies possible at the institution. 

Looking over the longer term it seems clear that the sector has had an extraordinarily good run of adding headcount and that this has accelerated in recent years.  Several commentators, including me, have noted that recent growth in staff numbers has been fuelled by an unsustainable bonanza in international student income.  The party had to stop sometime.

The real problem for the UK is that in the absence of central control and the evidence of university mismanagement there is no guarantee that the sector is acting strategically.  It is quite possible that the wrong jobs are being lost in the wrong disciplines in the wrong geographical locations.  That is a good reason there should be no “one size fits all” financial bailout of the sector. 

A golden decade of growth in academic staff employed

HESA data shows a decade of additional academic jobs every year since 2014/15.  The growth in numbers employed over the last five reported years (23,405) has been even faster than the growth of the five years before (18,730).  In the last two reported years alone more than 12,000 academic staff were added.  

Source: HESA

* The cognoscenti will know that “atypical” academic staff are listed separately.  It is reasonable to note that from 2021/22 to 2023/24 the number of atypical staff fell by about 400 to 62,730.

Before anyone starts howling that the growth is driven by a fragmented, gig economy of fractional posts it’s worth considering that the FTE number show the same pattern.  From 2014/15 to 2018/19 an additional 13,515 FTE were added but from 2019/20 to 2023/24 a further 17,070 were added.  From 2012/22 to 2023/24 the total growth of 12,910 in total academic staff compared to FTE growth of 9,915.  The most recent year reported showed growth of nearly 10,000 FTE on the year before.

Source: HESA

So, if there was a net loss of 10,000 FTE academic jobs in the current round of redundancies employment levels would fall to about where they were in 2021/22.  That might make some sort of sense if the employment of academics was largely fuelled by growing numbers of international students.  But any job losses being publicized aren’t just about academic staff.

Let’s not forget the professional staff

The professional staff in universities, quite properly, don’t want to be overlooked so they must also be taken into the overall count.  Regrettably the numbers are harder to get at.  It is a well recorded disgrace that many universities took the opportunity to shield the growth in their non-academic staff numbers from HESA records at the first possible opportunity. 

The last full set in the HESA data is 2018/19 when 166 institutions recorded the detail of non-academic headcount with 222,885 staff.  By 2023/24 only 125 showed employment of non-academic staff.  The lack of transparency is very unhelpful in gaining public understanding or trust.

Evidence from individual institutions suggests that non-academic staff employment growth has at least kept pace with academic staff growth and in some cases has exceeded it.  But if we apply the same percentage growth rate as in academic staff from 2018/19 it is plausible that non-academic numbers grew by 13.8% from 222,885 to 253,643 by 2023/24.

Adding the estimated non-academic employment to the known academic numbers suggests that total employment in the UK higher education sector stood at around 500,000.  The number employed could well have grown by over 20,000 from 2021/22 to 2023/24.  In this context a reduction of 10,000 in the overall workforce seems more like a correction than a catastrophe.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Trump, Tech and Tomorrow is Another Day

We are just a few days from the annual Open Doors announcement and it will be accompanied by the Fall 2024 snapshot.  But there is some merit in getting underneath the hood of individual institutions to see what the trends might be and think about what might happen next.  Focusing on four of the INTO University Partners “comprehensive partnerships” where universities give reasonable levels of Fall 2024 enrollment detail also gives a sense of how traditional pathway might be doing.

It’s a mixed bag with Oregon State University (OSU) still becalmed, St Louis University (SLU) appearing to be over-exuberant in its growth ambitions, the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) making steady progress and George Mason University (GMU) stalling.  A top-level review of the three public universities suggests that UAB wins on value1 but consideration of their website and positioning suggests that they have integrated thinking about and appealing to international students in a more fundamental way than some competitors2.  As more US universities become active in pursuit of international students this holistic approach is likely to be increasingly important.

There does not appear to be any sign of a revival in the number of students coming from China, either in direct enrollment or through pathways.  The situation with visa refusals and delays for Indian students has been commented on in several media and appears to be having a dampening effect.  The US need for STEM students continues and it will be interesting to see whether the incoming President’s increased engagement with the “tech bros” gives momentum and follow through on his Green Card promise.

The reality is that the underlying dynamics of international recruitment have changed as the main sending countries have shifted.  Promises of post-study work opportunities would be a significant enhancement to the traditional lure of the US and students will often overlook the internal politics of a country if getting a visa and a job is straightforward.  It is arguable that even a “frontal attack” on university  freedoms is unlikely to deter the majority of students seeking a career in the US.       

Oregon State University

The first INTO partner in the USA, Oregon State University made no progress on rebuilding its international student numbers in Fall 2024.  Enrollments are still below 2012 level and undergraduate numbers are continuing to drift down from a peak in 2017.  Year on year the number of Chinese enrollments has fallen another 23% (to 262), students from India are down 4% (to 375) and the only bright spot is students from Taiwan up 27% (to 223).

Source: OSU Office of Institutional Research

The INTO Oregon State University joint venture continues to struggle and is down 63% on its pre-pandemic enrollment.  While the Fall enrollment is up by 44 students3 to 301 this remains below the numbers achieved in 2020 and 2021.  All this despite the joint venture launching a special “Jump Start” employment program for international students in July 2024 to help drive enrollment.     

Source: OSU Office of Institutional Research

St Louis University

As failures in forecasting go St Louis University’s (SLU) well publicized enrollment of only 300 additional international students against a target of 1,300 isn’t quite in the class of Lord Kelvin’s 1895 claim that “heavier than air flying machines are impossible”.  But for those now trying to find savings of $20m in the year the resulting shortfall looks pretty painful.  It could be a sign that for some US universities the reliance on enrollment from India for growth brings increasing levels of risk.

On the face of it, SLU’s targeted growth must have seemed plausible given that the year before they had increased the numbers enrolled from India by 1,775.  Having all your eggs in one basket (with SLU having 76% of its international students from India) is rarely a good idea and the shortfall brings the F1 visa trends into sharp relief.  An excellent article in University World News by Ragh Singh suggests that from January to August 2024 there were 39,000 fewer F1 visas issued to Indian students than in the same period for 2023.

Source: St Louis University Office of Institutional Research

The INTO SLU joint venture pathway operation became wholly owned by INTO in August 2021 and its enrollment numbers are not publicly available.  As the official language of both Ghana and Nigeria is English it seems unlikely that the modest growth in direct student enrollments from these countries are feeding into the pathway.  There is no sign of a revival in enrollments from China. 

St Louis University Direct Student Enrollment – Main Countries

201920202021202220232024
India726517066424392620
China309233166108111101
South Korea282125586974
Nigeria19920405656
Ghana7911182946
Saudi Arabia645341404140

Source: St Louis University Office of Institutional Research

University of Alabama Birmingham

The University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) is another “comprehensive partner” of INTO and looks to be making steady progress on international student recruitment.  UAB is probably helped by featuring regularly as being good value for international students as well as featuring well in external measures of quality. In Fall 2022 “just under a third” of international students were from India and it is a reasonable bet that this percentage has increased.

August 2023 saw a strong media item featured on WBRC News which could be a model for universities anywhere in the world trying to emphasis the local economic and cultural value of international students. Shadi Martin, Dean of Graduate School and Chief International Officer makes the point that, “It used to be that we had a lot of students who came from China, that number has shifted.  But we are seeing a significant number of students coming from India right now.  We have students coming from the Middle East [and] Africa.”

Source: UAB Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Analysis

At the joint venture INTO UAB pathway level the university does not split out nationalities.  The pathway appears to have recovered reasonably well from the pandemic with a particularly strong showing in Academic English in Fall 2024.  All looks set fair.

Source: UAB Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Analysis

George Mason University

George Mason University (GMU) does not provide a breakdown of its international student enrollment numbers until it publishes its Facts and Figures Yearbook.  The best approximation is the Out of State student number of which international students have been a growing proportion.  In Fall 2024 the Out of State FTE fell slightly on the previous year which may be an indicator that international enrollment has fallen.  

Source: George Mason University Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Planning

The joint venture partnership with INTO had been making a slow recovery after the pandemic but has suffered a setback with a 16% decrease in enrollment year on year.  This takes it back to levels last seen at the onset of the pandemic.  It’s only 11 students fewer but seems to reflect the picture at the overall university level.

Source: George Mason University Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Planning

NOTES

  1. It is always difficult to compare like for like in terms of value.  Some comparison tools were used to make this assessment but the author accepts that there may be other ways of considering this evaluation.
  2. This is a personal and qualitative assessment based on several decades of experience recruiting international students for universities.
  3. This number is based on the year-on-year reporting.  There appears to be an unexplained adjustment to 2023 numbers in the 2024 publication.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Doctor, Doctor Give Universities the News

The comments made by Alan Milburn in The Times about the NHS are much more sharply worded than Bridget Philipson’s recent homily about wanting a “sustained efficiency and reform programme” in higher education.  Her comments were accompanied by five loosely worded and poorly defined “priorities” without any sense of urgency or scale.  We have to wait until next summer to understand what she means by higher education reform but hopefully Milburn has already given us the headlines.         

“…weaned off the ‘more, more, more’ culture”

The recent increase in student tuition fees to £9,535 from April 2025 was instantly met with a volley of comments saying it was just a start and wasn’t enough.  The Government probably hoped for some recognition that they had taken a step that the public was unlikely to support.  What they got was a turning up of the volume on comments that suggests universities are still ignoring the priorities of taxpayers and voters.

There seems little merit in supporting the creation of more degree awarding institutions, even through independent provision, when the country seems unable to support the current system and the franchise market is a mess.  If more students did go to university the more popular institutions would simply manipulate their enrollment numbers to the detriment of those that are less well positioned.  Having more graduates may even continue depressing the level of the graduate premium.    

Having fewer institutions might have the benefit of concentrating scarce resources more effectively without compromising student experience and outcomes.  It might be possible to regulate them more closely to ensure that they are delivering outcomes that help drive the Labour Party agenda for economic growth.  A German architect is credited with coining the phrase “less is more” but that might become the guiding aphorism for the higher education sector.        

“..it’s drinking in the last-chance saloon”

Back in 2012 universities were totally unabashed at moving almost in unison to £9,000 a year tuition fees at a point when Government expectation was of an average £7,500. As soon as the Graduate Visa route was introduced there was an uninhibited dash by many institutions to take as many students as possible. There are plenty of signs that on both occasions the cash bounty led to some unwise investments, vanity projects and administrative bloat.  We are still dogged with the never ending saga of increasing salaries for vice-chancellors.

Universities have had lots of chances to invest in ways that do not leave them open to public apathy, claims of dumbing down courses while inflating degree grades, and downgrading  graduate outcome data.  But like inveterate gamblers they have expected windfalls as their birthright and continued to squander the returns on ill-advised bets.  What we can be sure of is that if things go wrong and a university does become insolvent the sector will ignore any evidence of poor forecasting, reckless investment or bad management as the underlying cause.

“If you’ve broadly got less resourcing than then, you’ve got to do more reforming than then”

This reflects something that every organization in the world knows.  The job of leadership is to forecast well and make good decisions that reflect the financial circumstances.  Every business has been through the painful realities of a downturn in revenue and realized that nobody is going to save them.  The answer is usually to find new ways of satisfying users/consumers/students with less money. 

For many organizations the challenge brings creativity, innovation and focus that establishes a more disciplined and leaner approach to delivering effectively.  In the commercial sector those that are unable to do the necessary work of rejuvenation receive little sympathy when they become insolvent and are gobbled up by those that are more able.  There are several institutions that have invested millions in restructuring without real success and continue to bleed domestic students – it may be time they were relieved of their struggles

“We are in a different fiscal climate..”

It’s a simple truth that the UK’s finances are shaky but the reality is that we are also in a different climate as far as public opinion is concerned.  Universities are well down the list of public sympathy for more taxpayer money and students are increasingly balking at the loan burden they are expected to take on when faced with evidence that suggests a graduate premium is not what it was.  The state of the national finances suggest that the cash taps are unlikely to be opened for universities in any foreseeable future and there is little evidence that students are willing to make up the difference.

“People have got to stop thinking that the answer to the…problem is simply more and more money.”

This is where Milburn begins to talk about the need for culture change.  He notes that any increases in funding have to be “..matched by a massive dose of reform” and claims that he is seeing evidence that this is recognized by the sector and that frontline staff are “pushing to do things differently.”  There is every reason to believe that frontline staff in universities would like to see things done in new ways and that some have already borne the brunt of poorly managed and executed restructuring.  But there are many reasons to ask whether senior management or the oversight body of the university are competent in conceiving of or delivering the necessary change.

In the times when inflated tuition fees and record international student numbers created a cash bonanza all of those failings were papered over because there always was “..more and more money.”  It is arguable that some in the sector think that this is still the answer and even the extraordinary Universities UK claim that “most families will understand” having to pay increasing levels of tuition fees.  Such comments suggest that senior spokespeople still have a mindset based on handouts rather than considering ways of building a better future.

Starmer calls for a Government known for “game-changing innovation and reform”

These are brave words and it is difficult to see that the new Government has done much to impress the mantra on anything.  It has bowed down to incremental change in the tuition fee, cozied up to the sector with soothing noises on international students and is yet to be tested on its resolve not to bail out universities that become insolvent.

It is very difficult to see how the university sector can continue in its current size and shape.  Many commentators have noted its penchant for duplicating courses and some institutions seem unable to attract sufficient domestic students to remain viable.  The sector has grown by increment but is largely the same shape and offering the same product as it was fifty years ago.  A one-size fits all, taxpayer underpinned response from Government would be neither innovative or reforming.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

Siren Song for Captain Keir

It is striking that Keir Starmer should be setting out his stall for ten years at the helm of government to repair the mess he claims the Tories left.  By chance or design the return of Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, from the Trojan wars also took a decade.  The journey was outlined in Homer’s Odyssey and this Greek epic poem offers several pointers for Keir as far as university funding is concerned.

The siren voices of the sector are singing away in an attempt to lure Labour onto the rocks of throwing taxpayer cash at an outdated, inefficent financial and operational model.  Like Odysseus, Captain Keir needs to strap himself to the mast and ensure that his ministers have beeswax in their ears as they row away from danger.  This as an early challenge and the rocks of Scylla (union backed pay restoration) and the whirlpool of Charybdis (the NHS funding challenges) still await if he, like Odysseus, is to complete his journey home.

A Slippery Slope

Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero used the “slippery slope” metaphor and it should be another classics reminder to Labour that affairs can “glide readily down the path of ruin when once they have taken a start.”  iNews has reported that the DfE has already established a special unit for universities in trouble and one has benefited from its support.  But “university sources” whispers to them that there are “a relatively small number – but a number that you would notice if they went over the edge – that are in really significant financial problems.”

It’s a beautifully crafted statement from anonymous sources.  It puts the scare in the story with “a number you would notice”, the urgency with “over the edge”, the scale with “really significant”, but pulls back to say the number is “relatively small” to suggest other institutions are good stewards of their finances.  It could be characterized as seductively threatening. But Labour would be failing in its obligations if it didn’t ask why taxpayer money should be channeled to the whole sector just because a few cannot manage their budgets.

By focusing on the few, Labour could name them so that their leadership, including the university councils involved, could be properly reviewed to see if they have acted responsibly with public money and the future of their students.  A clear out rather than a handout might be the most cost-effective option.  Reorganization rather than more money was a drum Wes Streeting was beating about the NHS but his tune seems to be changing so the resolve of the government is under serious threat.    

Time Flexes…Like Resolve

Aristotle told us that, “Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.”  In July, Bridget Phillipson told the World at One that “Labour had “no plan” to raise [university tuition] fees.”  By August 16,  iNews was  reporting that “increasing student fees” was on the table, despite Phillipson saying just a week earlier that it would be a “really unpalatable thing to be considering.” 

It is quite extraordinary that the Government is unprepared and appears in chaos over an issue which had been flagged for many months ahead of the General Election.  Having already caved in to several union wage demands they may be willing to throw fuel on the bonfire of handouts by doing the same for universities that are unable to manage their own finances.  But there is little wonder that Captain Keir’s office is said to be nervous – he’s the one that said he was renouncing the total withdrawal of tuition fees because the money was needed for the NHS.

It Will Never Be Enough

Epicurus explained that “nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little” and that’s a good mantra if it is true that Labour are considering an increase in fees but keeping it under £10,000 for “presentational reasons”.  They are dealing with a sector that wallowed in the benefits of implementing £9,000 tuition fees when a figure of £6,000 was expected and feasted on the opportunity to recruit international students with little control.  Some would argue that the wasted millions on restructuring costs, unwise investments, bloated bureaucracies and vanity projects indicates that some universities are incapable of making good decisions even when they have guarantees of more money.

Another good lesson comes from Wales where tuition fees have increased from £9,000 to £9,250 in 2024 (although the overall settlement is complex) with none of the universities showing any enthusiasm.  Part of the problem for some of the institutions is that they have been presiding over longer-term declines in domestic students which suggests there are far more serious structural problems at play.  Increasing reliance on international student income has become a feature of some, such as the University of South Wales, but that raises serious questions about the purpose of universities.

In Scotland, tuition is free for Scottish students but it is notable that the amount received per student is, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, only £7,610.  Given the outrage of the English universities at their £9,250 tuition fee one wonders how Scottish universities continue to deliver effectively with little apparent difference in outcomes.  While Scottish institutions get four years of tuition fee for many domestic undergraduate students they still have to spend money teaching and providing services in the extra year.

Tinkering with the tuition fee could infuriate the tax paying voter and may turn a number of students off incurring additional debt.  It seems unlikely to satisfy the universities who continue to claim that the fee has been eroded by inflation to less than £6,000 and that every student they recruit loses them over £3,000.  Leaving aside the dubious maths involved there is clearly a gap between university demands and Labour’s ability to pay, taxpayers’ willingness to fund and students’ appetite for debt.       

The Public Good

Rome has some claims as an early (although far from perfect) example of representative democracy and in De Legibus Cicero tells us that “the welfare of the people is the highest law.”  In that respect Labour needs to think hard about the views of the public when it comes to higher fees and funding for universities.  It also needs to consider whether the sector is showing any signs of responding to current circumstances.

There is little evidence of genuine collaboration or strategic thinking in a sector where stronger institutions are hoovering up students in clearing to the detriment of those that are weaker.  It is much the same in international recruitment where stronger Russell Group universities are able to outmuscle their supposed peers in terms of recruitment.  Labour should not believe for one second that universities will stop acting in their own interests even if it means driving another institution to insolvency.

Labour must also be alert to the propensity of sector spokespeople to obfuscate, fantasize and cherry pick data when making assertions.  There is, for example, no evidence at all to support the UUK Chief Executive’s statement that, ‘Most families will understand the need to increase university fees’.  Public First research shows that this is wishful thinking because, “Across the board, people think fees are too high and that people leave university with excessive debt.”

We know from the same research that “..there is significantly more public support for further education and apprenticeships” than for higher education.  In 2023 the UPP Foundation, working with the Higher Education Policy Institute, published research showing 32% of 18-24 year olds surveyed saying “a university degree is a waste of time”. 57% of the total surveyed were either uninterested, sceptical or negative about universities.

Even if the Chancellor could find ways of freeing up the money for the cost of higher fees in her budget who would thank Labour? Parents would just see higher debt, students would just see higher fees and the bill would have to be paid eventually. When Starmer is talking about a “painful” budget, making “difficult decisions” and “it won’t be business as usual” penalising students, rewarding poorly run institutions and giving the taxpayer a bigger than necessary bill seems a poor choice.

Strategy, Strength and Sucking It Up

None of this underestimates the challenges if a university becomes insolvent or the individual pain facing staff as cutbacks come.  But in some cases university management have been spending money on restructuring for years and that there are clear examples of poor decision making.  Continually propping the system up with generalized handouts of taxpayer money and no fundamental change would not help.

John Raftery makes a number of blunt points based on experience at London Metropolitan University and the University of Wolverhampton. A number of other “trouble shooting” VCs have taken on institutions in trouble and put them on a more solid footing. It is time that the shape, size and purpose of the sector was considered with any earlier financial input being contingent on competent management being installed to manage the situation. There is no one-size fits all answer.

To borrow from one more Greek source, the Labour government has set out on a task akin to the Herculean task of cleaning the Augean stables.  They will certainly not be able to do it in a day but they will have to start by showing they have the nerve, the forethought and the fortitude to resist easy answers.  Realigning the higher education sector to fit the needs of the country is a test of their ability to do so. 

Image by OpenIcons from Pixabay

Black Thursday for UK Higher Education

After the disruption of the pandemic and half a year of growing tensions on international recruitment and university finances we enter the annual UK university trolley dash known as clearing.  It has become as heavily trailed as Black Friday or Cyber Monday and is an equally depressing sales event with overhyped bargains leading to buyer’s carrying both remorse and significant debt.  After a show of unity to preserve the international graduate route, universities will show us that there is no love lost between institutions when it comes to manipulating domestic students into a panic purchase. 

We have already seen the trumpeting of  “Russell Group universities with plenty of clearing places” to remind us of a hierarchy conditioned by meaningless league tables, government policy failures, and media dumbing down.  Meanwhile, institutions outside that charmed circle are putting in place the slick enrolment machine that is willing to take as many marginal calls as necessary to fill the places.  Clearing in 2024 is, more than ever, the sign of a near bankrupt system using tactics that resemble the worst of closing down sales.

Early bird offers, VIP packages, prize draws, personal guidance, priority call-backs are all in the mix as institutions choose the tactics of double-glazing sales rather than focusing on the quality of their academic offer.  The shame is that they are dealing mainly with young people facing a life-changing decision at one of the most vulnerable times of their life to date.  When institutions will go to these lengths it is difficult to see that their advice will be impartial but some of the tactics seem to fly close to the wind in other areas protected by consumer law.            

Pressure to Close

Areas on the radar of the Competition and Markets Authority include false urgency and price reduction claims from online sellers.  Students are undoubtedly told they need to move quickly and that there are grade reductions available to the swift. Last year it was Clare Marchant, Chief Executive of UCAS, advising students to be “pretty quick off the mark” while this year she is the vice-chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire offering a prize draw where one “clearing VIP” will get a year of free accommodation. 

This year we find other industry pundits saying “pupils “who act fast” after getting their results “could find many university courses still open.”  It is poor advice to give someone who is making one of the biggest decisions of their life.  An average undergraduate emerges with around £50,000 of debt, spends three years of time and has no certainty of any payback. 

To put that in context, the maximum jail sentence for possession of a Class C drug is just two years.  Brentford FC striker Ivan Toney got an eight month ban and £50,000 fine for 232 breaches of betting rules last year.  Surely the sector would do better to advise young people taking such major decisions that they must think long and hard about their actions.

When It’s Gone, It’s Gone

Clearing is presented as a massive opportunity for students but is really a game played to rules set by the universities and the odds favour the house.  Reading that “the UK’s leading universities” have nearly 4,000 courses in clearing compared to only 2,000 last year sounds like a good thing for choice.  But nowhere does it say how many places are actually available for each courses.

That’s because each university wants the maximum numbers to choose from and will keep on fishing until it either meets a number it has set for that course or that will balance out to achieve an overall target between courses.  The student making an application has no idea if they are in a competition with 100 others for two places or the sole applicant for a course seeking 100 students.  Knowing if your chances are one in fifty or a near certainty would seem a reasonable and is a requirement of The Gambling Commission for virtual games of chance.

Inflated Anchor Prices

This is the phrase used when a store shows a “regular” or “original” price to demonstrate how much value its sale price offers.  Most countries have legislation in place to prevent stores promoting misleadingly high anchor prices that have only been charged in exceptional, limited circumstances.  The university published tariff is really just the equivalent of an anchor price and its relationship to reality isn’t very transparent.

The UCAS move to have “real grades” shown seems a good idea but using historical data is next to useless and UCAS itself is clear that “as the data is based on previous years it shouldn’t be used as an indication of how likely you are to get a place on a course now.”    UCAS research indicates that 49% of students are accepted on university courses with grades “lower than the entry requirements.”  But this may be made up of a number of factors – students given an offer below the published requirements, students who miss their offered grades but get accepted and then students who are taken at lower grades to fill spaces. 

It would be appropriate, meaningful and possible with technology for universities to provide real time data on entry qualifications that they are accepting.  This would prevent a false market developing as university advertising and promotional material remains a step behind reality.  It would also mean that students get better transparency when making their choices.

Bait And Switch

In England and Wales, bait and switch is banned under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.  The practise involves a retailer luring a consumer into believing they can buy a product at a low price when there is insufficient or no stock available.  Classically, the trader then attempts to ‘up-sell’ to a higher priced product.

For universities in clearing, the lack of transparency on actual grade requirements and numbers of places available means that a headline course needing one or two additional students can draw in significant interest.  Some students calling might be told the course is already full but that there is a very similar course in the same faculty available in clearing.  It’s the sort of thing that can happen at other points of the but under the time pressure of clearing the student may be easier to persuade to switch course.

A Conspiracy of (Near) Silence

For universities the onus is on filling the seats available.  This wholly undermines the much-touted notion that every domestic student recruited comes at a deficit of over £3,000.  The claim is so crass that it is difficult to believe supposedly intelligent people make it so regularly.

But to get an inside voice on the tactics and the motivators one needs the disarming honesty of a director of recruitment who is not too close to the white heat of combat.  Step forward Mike Nicholson, director of recruitment at the University of Cambridge, who says that by choice universities will start by selecting students with a place already offered who “narrowly missed” grades.  Only after that might they go into clearing if absolutely necessary and because they “..have a very clear sense of what their numbers are this year, what they’ve got to achieve to balance the books.”

In a nutshell, universities are in it for the money and it is not in their interests to share information on availability of places or grades required with students.   The pre-qualification offer process that institutions have defended for so long gives them plenty of room for maneuver and the wholly undeserved opportunity to appear generous when they accept applicants with lower grades.  It is another feature that undermines belief in the fairness and transparency of higher education.   

Over and above that we have examples of students who went to university as a result of opportunities in clearing but found the outcome less than optimal. At a point in time when some universities are seeing a growth in the numbers of students dropping out there should be real concern that clearing is creating conditions that attract students who will struggle to complete the course. For some, the consequences can be devastating.  

But the lessons of acting with overdue haste in clearing may be at the heart of a broader problem for the sector. Even those who may not have taken a snap decision at clearing are reconsidering whether a degree was the right choice for them.  When 78% say they have “considered leaving university during their studies” it’s time for everyone to slow down before taking the plunge.

Image by S K from Pixabay

Squaring the Circle

Squaring the circle represents a geometry problem from Greek mathematics with some suggesting that Anaxagoras was the first to work on it around 450 BC.  The problem required the construction of a square with the area of a given circle using only Euclidean construction and a limited number of steps.  It wasn’t until 1882 that the Lindemann-Weierstrass theorem, which proves that pi is a transcendental number, showed that the task was impossible.

The incoming Labour government may find it has a similarly difficult task in trying to balance UK economic strategy, workforce needs and international student recruitment.  When a student visa comes with two years of guaranteed opportunity to find a job and international enrollment growth is dependent on post-study work rights, the linkage between study and work is evident.  For a government that is committed to getting the UK employment rate from 75% to 80% with “2 million more people in work across the UK” it will interesting to see if there is enough economic growth to meet all needs.

It’s also interesting to look at the party’s historic position on the relationship between work and study rights and the thinking of some of its current leading figures on the economic and political priorities.  With plans for primary/secondary years and “training, an apprenticeship, or help to find work for all 18- to 21-year-olds” articulated in its manifesto the current priorities for education also seem clear.  What seems to be lacking is any real focus on higher education.         

The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones1

Labour’s underlying attitude to the balance between jobs and migration may have been articulated in 2007 when Jacqui Smith, now Education Minister, was the Home Secretary introducing the new points-based visa system.  She noted its role in “…ensuring that only those migrants Britain needs can come to work or study in the UK.”  The absolute clarity of “only those migrants Britain needs” suggests a transactional approach to study and work visas founded on the UK’s express requirements rather than open house on post-study work.

It was consistent with the Labour Government’s five year strategy published in February 2005. Then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, noted, “We will bring all our current work schemes and students into a simple points-based system designed to ensure that we are only taking migrants for jobs that cannot be filled from our own workforce…” (my emphasis).     

By February 2009 Smith was having to tighten up on the points based system for migrant workers and saying, “Just as in a growth period we needed migrants to support growth, it is right in a downturn to be more selective about the skill levels of those migrants, and to do more to put British workers first.”   While it was a Conservative Government that would cut post study work rights in 2011 as unemployment was stuck at c8% it is difficult to think Labour would have done anything else.      

Language is the immediate actuality of thought2

Bridget Phillipson may be on record as saying, “Be in no doubt: international students are welcome in the UK” but amid all the happy talk that has got the sector so excited there must surely be an underlying concern that these are only words.  Back in 2011, David Cameron said, “We’re working with the sector to encourage the brightest and best students from around the world to come and study..”  and in 2012 Theresa May said, “…we want the best and the brightest minds in the world to come to study in Britain, and we want our world-class universities to thrive.”  Everyone knows what happened next.

Jacqui Smith, as Minister of State for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, will certainly  have to reconsider her responses if she is truly to “champion universities”.  The early signs are less than encouraging, as she has already failed to guarantee support for universities under funding pressure and only remarked that universities should be “looking at how they can run efficiently as possible”.  This follows Bridget Phillipson’s suggestion that there are “expectations around how they manage their budgets, and I would expect them to do that without seeking any calls on the taxpayer”

It would be naïve of universities to read much into the government’s more supportive statements other than an attempt to calm the crew (rather than actively steady the ship) while they face much more important issues like a £20bn funding gap, a collapsing NHS and armed forces unable to fight a sustained conflict.  If the sector chooses to pursue significant increases in international student enrollments to fill a funding gap it runs the risk of compromising the Government on a migration issue where much of the voting public remains nervous.  The severity of the Chancellor in the House of Commons yesterday is also not to be underestimated. 

Ruthless criticism of all that exists3

There may also be something about the underlying thinking of key figures in the Labour party that mitigates against allowing significant growth in the number of students working after studying.  Keir Starmer made it clear to the CBI in 2022 that Labour would set about “reducing the UK’s dependency on migrant labour”.  More generally in a policy vacuum related to universities he has ditched a commitment to abolish student tuition fees and has constantly dodged making any aspirational statements on higher education participation.     

In an essay for a Fabian Society publication in 2016 the Chancellor Rachel Reeves noted that, “it is important to acknowledge that being a member of the EU did help keep wages lower for many workers”.  More recently she has said that “..rising population growth from immigration has sometimes exacerbated the slow take-up of technology in the UK economy.” The political element is also clear with Reeve’s noting in 2016 that “Immigration controls and ending free movement has to be a red line post-Brexit – otherwise we will be holding the voters in contempt.”  None of this suggests a free for all on student or graduate visas will be welcome.

A proponent of the strategy to reduce the numbers on long-term sickness benefit is Alan Milburn, an ex-Labour Secretary of State for Health, who also links the practical issue of UK domestic employment with the political realities.  Writing in The Times he says, “This is a wake-up call for the new Labour government to wean themselves off the easy solution of importing more workers from overseas”.  Any increase in the number of international students seeking work after study may be seen as in tension with “getting more out-of-work Brits into work”.

It could be even worse if Labour is looking at commentary from Australia where Leith van Onselen has recently argued that entry level jobs are “swallowed by international students”.  His argument is that this is “posing problems for younger Australians seeking entry into the labour market.”  The last thing the sector, or Labour, needs is a controversy where domestic students are unable to pay back tax-payer funded debt because international students are dominating the jobs market.

From the world of thought to the actual world4

It is reasonable to note that if you change the conditions of the problem, squaring the circle becomes possible and that the Labour Party Manifesto ran for office under the slogan “Our plan to change Britain”.  The pressing question is whether the Labour government is fully committed to seeing universities as a key part of a preferred solution to change Britain and if it does, why is there no sense of direction at the moment?  It has already shown that it is lukewarm on the notion of committing money to help failing universities and where the manifesto commits to 18- to 21-year-olds it is all about training, apprenticeships and finding work.

There is no sweeping commitment to increase the numbers going to university, industrial strategy seems couched in terms of “research institutions”, university spinouts, and using public investment to unlock private sector investment.  There is a commitment to reduce net migration and its sentence on ending the days of “a sector languishing endlessly on immigration shortage lists” might be directed at universities as much as employers.  The “barriers to opportunity” section of the manifesto offers progressive plans for schools, apprenticeships and further education while higher education gets “strengthening regulation”, better integration with FE, improving access and raising teaching standards.

None of this looks like a Labour party that, even if sympathetic to aspiration and more domestic students in higher education, sees the current, disparate and expensive offering of three-year campus based degrees for young people as the optimal way forward. We shall see.

NOTES

All sub-headings are from the writings of Karl Marx.  Congratulations to the Marxist Internet Archive for a very well organized and interesting site.

  1. “The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones” (Marx, German Ideology (1845))
  2. “Language is the immediate actuality of thought” (Marx, German Ideology, Chapter 3 (1846))
  3. “ruthless criticism of all that exists” Marx, Letter from the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (1843)
  4. “from the world of thought to the actual world”  Marx, German Ideology, Chapter 3 (1846)

Image by PIRO from Pixabay

Dear University…

The change in the UCAS personal statement for September 2026 entry appears to have been welcomed by industry commentators who suggest it will make life “easier” for both author and reader.  The stated ambition “to ensure more people from disadvantaged backgrounds can benefit  from the life-changing opportunity of higher education”  is laudable but one might ask if this approach is best or sustainable.  We could just be opening a new battleground in the struggle for supremacy between AI coders for applicants and those in universities trying to spot the hand of ChatGPT. 

Having read personal statements in the past, I can only begin to imagine the repetition of thought and words across hundreds of applicants as they answer to “why do you want to study this course”.  For applicants the anxiety of how edgy, pushy, obsequious, or data-driven to be in responding to the question remains the same and it will still be considered by a human with their personal interpretation of the best answer.  More efficient but even worse if the response is considered by a bot looking for key words. Perhaps it is time to radically rethink the process. 

Perhaps selecting universities, to put all applicants meeting their requirements (including contextual elements and any other considerations) into a random draw to remove any risk of bias.  For universities struggling to meet enrollment numbers it is difficult to see how bad a personal statement would have to be to get refused if the applicant meets the qualifications criteria for entry.  Either way, the student gets more clarity on what they need to do and an equal chance of success.       

Or maybe universities should be accepting that students are paying for the privilege to study and have a right to apply for whatever course they want if they have the qualifications.  Nobody asks somebody coming in to buy a Range Rover Evoque for £50,000 why they want it, whether they’ve driven one before or what their driving history is.  They might ask to see a driving licence before it’s driven off the lot but that’s about it.

I hear the howls about a degree course being nothing like any other purchase but students seem to be increasingly clear that they are considering degrees as an investment they are making towards a better job, career and life.  UCAS research indicates that “value matters to students” and that “initially, applicants are interested in career prospects after their degree”.  While students still value wellbeing, enjoyment and happiness it would seem there has been a fundamental swing towards outcomes.   

…I Would Like To Apply

With all that in mind there is an opportunity to test drive the new format in the imaginary persona of an applicant who would like to go to university but has been reading very widely about the sector.  They are anxious to explain their interest but also to demonstrate their research, their personality and some of their concerns. There is even an attempt at humour.             

1. Why do you want to study this course or subject?

Because I believe in your publicity that having a degree will get me a good career and well paid job.  That is really what I want. I trust you.  As you will see from my application to your institution I am avoiding the Russell Group and STEM subjects. I realise this means that being from a poorer, socio-economic background and a neglected region I can expect to be part of the statistics showing that “a degree often fails to deliver the promise of increased earnings.” 

Although I’ve chosen to believe that the graduate premium exists, I am a bit worried that there is “a more uncertain future” and ignoring the Government Graduate Labour Market Statistics indicating that over the past 20 years real median graduate salaries have declined faster than those of non-graduates.  I am hoping that reports that it’s even worse outside London1 are all Balls1 and that the indications more and more companies are dropping the requirement for a degree to get a job are overblown. 

I want to come to university to help the sector by improving statistics on one of the groups it struggles to attract and I’ve chosen to study psychology because I am keen to improve gender balance in the class.2 

2. How have your qualifications and studies prepared you for this course or subject?

I am predicted to achieve the grades that you publish and in the right subjects.  My teachers may just be being kind, overworked or avoiding confrontation with my parents but that’s not my fault.  I’m told you’re so desperate I shouldn’t worry about missing by a bit.  Only joking (!) but we have all read the studies that 25% of grades are probably wrong  and that half the students get in with lower grades anyway. 

Post qualification application would solve the uncertainty and anxiety for young people but I appreciate that you have established a system that works for you and will find excuses not to change it.  Maybe it’s just a power thing or you think you’re some sort of magical sorting hat with a campus attached.  If I fail to get the grades I hope I will be given the same opportunity as an international year one student who pays for the privilege to study on campus with direct entrants. 

While on the subject of grades, it would be helpful to know exactly what you are doing about degree grade inflation and why half of first class degrees awarded are unexplained by statistical modelling.  I see you are correcting this but that means I might be penalized by having a lower degree classification than someone who attended in those golden years.

3. What other experiences have prepared you for this course, and why are they relevant?

I complain a lot and so can support that student trend. I can even enhance my global citizenship in line with your strategy by providing support for international students as they are 36% of all complaints to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for HE.  Because I often borrow money from my siblings and never pay it back I’ll cope well with joining the 1.8m graduates with a taxpayer funded debt of over £50,000 and those not earning enough to pay it off.  As I don’t like getting out of bed not attending lectures is OK with me and given the way you’re cutting staff that should help you out. 

I’m quite frugal, so living in borderline poverty shouldn’t be a problem however bad the maintenance loan situation gets.  I am also used to disappointment (having supported Gareth Southgate and England since 2018) which will lessen the pain when I get to the realities of the graduate job hunt.  My empathy is shown by my concern for international students on reading that data collection on graduate outcomes has been cut back which means they have even less insight than I do about job prospects. 

In summary my experience as an intense online gambler, who eats little, never goes out, earns a pittance, borrows heavily, complains a lot, expects to be disappointed and has limited life prospects has prepared me perfectly for life as a student.  Only kidding (again) I really would like the chance to learn.

The Generation Game

For this imaginary student there is a lot to consider in the light of survey research suggesting 30% of people being “broadly uninterested” in universities and a further 27% being “negative” or “sceptical”.  While the culture wars that saw the Conservative Government going head-to-head with the sector in recent years may be over there is little respite in terms of additional funding to reduce the level of fee debt or improve maintenance loans.  As the imaginary statement suggests there seem to be plenty of reasons to worry about whether university is a good investment of time, money and stress.

The weakness in UK undergraduate applications revealed by UCAS this week suggest that this argument might be playing out in the minds not only of 18 year olds but also every group under 25. It’s troubling in the context of a rapidly growing 18 year old cohort that is predicted to expand for the rest of the decade and even more so if surveys suggesting a third of UK students may drop out due to money worries are accurate.

Notes

  1. For those who miss the link the report “Tackling the UK’s regional economic inequality: binding constraints and avenues for policy intervention” is co-authored by Ed Balls whose surname was the punchline to Michael Heseltine’s joke at the Conservative Party Conference in 1995.
  2. It is entirely recognized that the gender imbalance on courses cuts both ways. It is also clear that despite more women than men going to university in the UK there is a huge amount still to be done on gender pay imbalances and equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has explored aspects of the intersection between these factors.

Image by Antonios Ntoumas from Pixabay