ukuniversities – View From A Bridge – management, education and personal thoughts

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

Universities and the Ten Percent Rule

Vice-chancellors proclaiming substantial organizational efficiencies, cuts and savings is the latest trend in the UK higher education sector and some would say it’s not before time. Their thinly veiled threats of catastrophe have largely failed to persuade the government to change course on home student fees or constraints on international recruitment, so they are reaching for the next tool in the box. Some would say they are likely to find a hammer and try to use it on a job where handcrafting is required but they do their best.

Meta Lessons In Making Statements

In a play direct from the Meta universe the strident tones match those from the Mark Zuckerberg book of corporate tough talk. At the end of 2022 the Meta share price had fallen 64% in the year and he declared 2023 a “year of efficiency”. By December 2023 the share price was up 178% as he “..responded to investor concerns about out-of-control spending.”

Costs at Meta for 2023 came down around 10% (a range of $89-95bn compared to predictions of $94-100bn). In a curious twist of fate, cue drum roll, Coventry University has announced that it plans to reduce costs by £40m in 2023/24 which is, um, around 10% of the University’s core expenditure (£447m) in 2022/23. It reminds me that one of the earliest lessons I was ever taught in the corporate world was that every manager should know where 10% of savings could come from in case there was a pinch in profitability at year end.

Over at the University of East Anglia (UEA), as noted in a previous blog, the organization seemed to be facing financial meltdown and possible “compulsory redundancies” in March 2023. The Annual Report and Financial statement from the year close on July 2023, just three months later, notes “..all the necessary £30.1m cost savings have been achieved” and all that with no compulsory redundancies. As if by coincidence staff and other operating expenses (excluding depreciation, amortization and other finance costs) was £294m which suggests a saving of, um, about 10%.

Moving to the south coast we see the University of Brighton making £17.9m in savings which, given normal operating expenditure (excluding financial expenditure) of £197m is, let me see, just under 10%. It is interesting to see assertions that the number of compulsory redundancies, 22, was not reduced “dozens of staff resigning to take up posts elsewhere”. Perhaps the University management decided to take the further savings windfall when it became available – or perhaps that’s just too cynical to contemplate.

Up the Amazon

It seems plausible that institutions are making a lot of noise to establish a negotiating position that will minimize resistance when they cut costs and 10% feels manageable. They might be better off considering something from the beginners guide to negotiation which can be summarized as “always open unreasonably in the eyes of the other side.” Perhaps a stretch target of 20% in cost-saving might make a substantial difference that allows room for genuine restructuring and reinvestment.

It would be particularly helpful if they saw cost control as an ongoing and positive step towards a better future rather than a defensive measure to cover poor forecasting and poorly judged investment. An example of the positive approach is that in 2001 Jeff Bezos, who penned an annual letter to shareholders for over 20 years, noted, “Focus on cost improvement makes it possible for us to afford to lower prices, which drives growth.” Another common theme from Bezos is that failure is important and necessary but it’s unlikely that he would have welcomed significant errors in forecasting revenue and costs in the core business.

This distinction is important because another common theme emerging from university annual reports is that some in the sector have acknowledged that they have been predicting badly and spending beyond their means for a while. As UEA notes, “Student recruitment numbers for 2022/23 were significantly lower than originally planned. This is on top of an accumulated 3,000 fewer students than planned throughout the Covid years, as experienced by many others in the Higher Education sector.” Coventry University’s 2022/23 Annual Report says, “The operating deficit has occurred as a result of costs growing faster than income.”

An Apple A Day

Since the start of the century international student recruitment has become a critical factor in most calculations about finances. The problem is that when the government or an external market provides an opportunity to gorge on international student mobility it can lead to over-indulgence. While one apple a day can be good for you and easy to digest, the outcome of eating too many too quickly is likely to be bloating and gas which seems apt given the growth in non-academic staff and some of the hot air from the sector.

Those with longer memories will recall that the late, sometimes lamented, Higher Education Funding Council for England noted in 2016 that predictions of increases in international student fee income, “…may be based on overly optimistic forecasting of international student growth. Plus ca change and all that because it is reasonably clear that this pattern has continued. However, the responsibility for this lies with individual institutions to plan, implement and review their activities rather than the hapless Office for Students to tell them what to do.

In that respect it is entirely appropriate for universities to consider taking a hatchet to costs if government policy has taken an axe to the tree of international student flows. It seems reasonable to believe that in years of plenty there is a likelihood of institutional bloat and almost inevitably there is a need for corrective action at some point. The real question is whether university management, having miscalculated trends in the first place, can be trusted to make the right cuts.

Alphabet Soup for Data

Which leads to thinking what the new business model might look like as the dependent visa issue bites and if the Migration Advisory Committee review of international student visa leads to further action reducing the competitiveness of UK higher education. Professor Tim Dunne, Provost and Senior Vice-President at the University of Surrey since 2022, had a go at this in a recent blog and made an interesting observation that “Many large post-1992 universities, such as Manchester Met, Liverpool Hope, and Leeds Beckett, have less than around 5% of their students paying overseas fees.” This suggested a way forward in the search for a new model,

A big problem with this notion is that MMU’s 2022/23 Annual Report notes that international students were 12% of the student population and international student fee income (excluding EU because MMU don’t separate it) is 17% of total full time student fee income. MMU has already beaten its 2026 international student recruitment target of 2,500 by 20%, in having 3,017 full-time, international, on-campus, new entrants last year. Times move quickly and this situation reflects what has happened in a number of institutions.

The real issue is that the sector is constantly referring to enrollment data that is at least 18 months old and which doesn’t take into account the likely impact of current year activity. It is really shambolic at a point when most universities seem to take pride in completing and publishing their financial statements within five months of the year end. The data is available and should be shared promptly to give external decision makers, students and the public timely information about the state of the sector.

Micro Talent Management, Soft Landing?

One helpful case study that some universities might like to study as an alternative to macho talk about cutbacks is that of Apple. The strategy seems to be to prioritize hiring quality over quantity in the first place, take an holistic view of talent, and always look to the long term needs of the organization. The company is not immune to the pressures of the market but CEO, Tim Cook, seems to run a business that reflects his suggestion that layoffs are “a last resort”.

As the sector becomes increasingly disrupted by alternative options, generational changes and other competitive pressures it seems likely that universities could and probably should be run more like businesses. This is a subject for a different blog but it is important to reflect that some of the best corporates take good care of their employees and see errors in forecasting or cost control as a management failing.

NOTES

It is ironical that Mister Ten Per Cent is the title of a British comedy film from 1967 where the inimitable Charlie Drake plays an amateur playwright whose earnest drama becomes a comedy success. In his ignorance he has also signed away 10% of the proceeds from the play to so many people that he owes 110% of the revenue. A salutary tale.

The sub-headings are inspired by the names of the Big Five tech companies. Crunchbase indicates that in 2022 “more than 93,000 jobs were slashed from public and private tech companies in the US” with more than 191,000 being cut in 2023. In 2023, Amazon cut 16,080 roles, Alphabet cut 12,000 and Meta cut 10,000. As noted, Apple seems to have a different approach to hiring and investment and has been much better able to withstand mass layoffs. This may offer some food (sic) for thought.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

“We Rely On Own Goals”

Reports suggest that the University of East Anglia (UEA) is in “financial turmoil” and facing a £30m deficit this year rising to £45m within three years. Clive Lewis, MP, for the constituency in which UEA sits has spoken of the university being in a “death spiral”, is seeking a meeting with the Education Minister and calling for a possible public enquiry. A deeper dive offers some thoughts for other institutions on leadership, governance, cutting losses and getting the value proposition right.

Matching Reward and Responsibility

Vice-Chancellor David Richardson, who tendered his resignation last week and left with immediate effect became a university Pro-Vice Chancellor in 2011 and Vice-Chancellor in 2014. He had been at the university for over 30 years and taught in the famous Lasdun Teaching Wall for much of his career. It would be difficult to suggest that he is not an insider and has no culpability for long term decision making about the institution and its future.

For that experience the rewards were substantial. Richardson’s emoluments have increased by around £90,000 since he took office in 2014. In 2019/20 when the “…mean paid basic salary for the heads of all [university] providers was £219,000”, his salary was 23% higher at £270,000 so exceptional performance was to be expected. Salary and benefits are also only part of the story with pension contributions rising even more quickly in percentage terms over his tenure to achieve total emoluments of £343,000.

In addition, the University reported that from 2018 to 2021, when he might have been expected to be focusing solely on the institution’s increasingly perilous financial situation, he was earning an additional £13,000 a year as a non-executive member of the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust board.

Another point about the upward trend in his salary is its comparison, as a multiple, to that earnt by others in the University. The multiple grew every year with the exception of 2021 when the Executive Team “volunteered a 10% reduction in salary for the first six months of 2020-21 with the vice-chancellor volunteering 15%.” The figures suggest the vice-chancellor more than made up for it the year after and just before resigning.

NB: Measure is the multiple of the vice-chancellor’s basic salary on the median pay of staff (excluding student workers who could be paid through a third party) where the median pay is calculated on a full-time equivalent basis for the salaries paid by the provider to its staff.

Most would say that Richardson was well paid and had a long-term understanding of the university, its potential and its challenges. As far as I can see the resignation announcement and personal statement on the university website contains no sign of accepting responsibility for its financial collapse or the impact on those who had been his colleagues for, in some cases, decades. When Chair of UEA Council, Dr Sally Howes stated, “I’m sure I speak for the whole community when we thank David for his commitment and service to UEA for these many years” it is abundantly clear that she does not capture all views on his tenure as VC.

Seeking Good Council (sic)

Richardson was supported on the University’s Executive Team by six pro-vice chancellors, a provost and deputy vice-chancellor, and four senior administrators. It is not entirely clear how this overlaps with the key management personnel who the Financial Statements describe as “..those ten individuals having authority and responsibility for planning, directing and controlling the activities of the University.” What is clear is that in 2017/18 there were nine of them with £1,296m compensation and by 2021/22 there were 10 with compensation of £1,813m.

Other key figures in terms of oversight were Dr Sally Howes, the University’s incoming Chair in August 2021 who became the first Chair of the University’s Council, for at least ten years and possibly ever, to receive remuneration (recorded as £30,000 in the 2021/22 Financial Statement). On making the appointment the University noted that she brought “… a wealth of experience in strategic roles in the UK space industry.” Mark Williams had been Treasurer on Council since August 2016 and was previously a partner at Deloitte, one of the UK’s big four professional services companies, so was far from a newcomer.

There were, arguably, quite a few people who had taken positions of responsibility to lead the University. However, anyone familiar with higher education will recognize the issues raised in a 2020 report “Universities Governance: A Risk of Imminent Collapse” and the urgent need for reform. It’s summary notes points like, “Council members and VCs rate themselves highly, but in reality are cumbersome and fail to devote adequate time to critical governance issues” and “The office of Vice-Chancellor (VC) has gained tremendous power, while its counterbalance – the university council – is poorly-structured and outdated in approach.”

Pathed with Good Intentions

The signs that UEA might be sleepwalking over a cliff seem apparent on reviewing the Financial Statements. In 2018 and 2019 David Richardson and Mark Williams signed off the Business Review including the sentence, “The University remains confident that it has in place adequate funding to support the operational and development plans, and to provide a reserve for managing financial risks, over the next three years.”

For 2020, 2021 and 2022 the wording changed to, “The University remains confident that it has in place adequate funding to support the operational and development plans, and to provide a reserve for managing financial risks, over the next five years.” (my emphasis). It is difficult to understand what drove this change in the timescale of their confidence at a point when the world was going through, then recovering from a pandemic where everyone’s future was in turmoil. Their confidence proved to be ill-placed.

Some of the Council minutes are equally concerning in retrospect. In November 2021 they report that the “Chair indicated that there is no end-to-end responsibility to management of risk. It was Council’s responsibility to set the risk management appetite.” The following sentence, “VC indicated that risks will be managed more closely in future” but a later revelation that the internal audit had found areas for major improvements for the second year suggests a lack of attention to critical detail.

At the next meeting in January 2022 a note from the Audit Committee comments, “concerns about red risks was noted and concerns were expressed about risk management and the extent to which it is embedded in the organization.” Perhaps prophetically given current circumstances Council “..suggested that staff morale might be considered to be added to the risk register.” In just three months the approved budget deficit set at £20.8m for 2021/22 had increased to £25m.

There is a sense in going through the set of 2021/22 Council minutes that the risk of failure and a diminishing hold on core management disciplines was being flagged but repressed. There does not appear to be much sense of mounting urgency over critical issues and while the danger of over-optimistic forecasting is flagged the abiding confidence in having “adequate funding” overwhelms it. Whether this was just happy talk, an attempt to obscure reality or simply a failure to comprehend is unclear.

Basics In a Bind

Meanwhile, the basics of running a decent university seem to have been forgotten. At a point in time when many universities have adjusted their recruitment strategies to secure significant financial advantage UEA seems to have been stranded as a high-priced, non-Russell Group outpost of misguided thinking. International student income in 2021/22 was lower than in 2016.

Just by way of comparison it is worth considering, say, the University of Leicester’s performance. In 2016 the income from international students was £52m but in 2022 it had reached £71.8m. Leicester is of comparable quality optically at 29^th in the Complete University Guide compared to UEA’s 27^th , it is non-Russell Group and its fees for international PGT are generally higher than UEA. There seems to be a failure of international recruitment strategy at UEA that management should have addressed.

Meanwhile the University performance on Research Grants and Contracts has been flat for five years and while the Home Full-Time Student increase looks strong the university notes in its 2021/22 financial statement that it “…fell approximately 8% short (2021:17% short) of entry targets..”. Taking these alongside the failure to tackle international student recruitment and the continuing decline in the real value of Home student fee tuition suggests an inability to control key revenue lines effectively.

NB: Research Grants and Contracts are University only to provide a like for like comparison over the period.

Along the way, the joint venture with INTO University Partnerships fell into serious difficulties with losses accelerating and the path to profitability seeming to extend from three years in the 2019/20 Statement to five years from 2021/22. In 2019/20 the words used were, “..there will be no distribution in respect of 2019/20 nor for the next three years (my emphasis) whilst the joint venture recovers and builds up surpluses for distribution” which implied a distribution by 2023/24 at the latest. In 2021/22 the words had changed to say, “…there will be no distribution in respect of 2021/22 nor for the next five years (my emphasis) while the joint venture recovers and builds up surpluses for distribution” which suggest no distribution until 2029/30. The slippage in forecasting recovery is baffling when for the privilege of maintaining the relationship UEA has also become co-guarantor for half of a loan of up to £7m to the joint venture.

Challenging Times or Chumps in Charge?

Nobody should underestimate the difficulties caused by the pandemic but it is clear that many institutions responded quickly and effectively to changed circumstances. It should not be a surprise to universities that international student dynamics were always likely to favour Russell Group universities for brand conscious candidates while those from many growth markets are more interested in lower cost tuition and accommodation. You can’t buck the market and shouldn’t consider your aspirations and ambitions as any guarantee against the cold reality of competitive markets.

Suggestions that problems and costs associated with the Lasdun Teaching Wall have exacerbated the situation are far from new. However, the 2006 Conservation Development Strategy for the University of East Anglia noted the issues and that solutions would “…require the expenditure of resources by UEA.” Whether university leadership failed to respond sufficiently at the time or later is a matter that the possible “public enquiry” espoused by local MP, Clive Lewis could consider.

Either way, the recriminations will go on. In a relatively small community like Norwich the prospect of compulsory redundancies after a £13.5m loss in 2021/22 had already sent shock waves through the city. The rapid escalation of the scale of loss from £37m in three years to £45m undoubtedly requires action that will be far more draconian than if the problems had been isolated and acted upon earlier. It is troubling that the lack of confidence in University leadership extends to the interim Vice-Chancellor who has been part of recent decision making.

A UEA Council Minute of November 2021 suggests the VC should bring forward a summary to each meeting of “what was keeping the VC awake at night”. With the decision to resign we might never know the answer to that question but the difficult times ahead will cause many academics and administrators to rethink their own futures. It may also be interesting to see if the Education Minister is kept awake at night by the HEPI article in September 2021 suggesting, “Why the Government should never bail out a university” and the past rhetoric of the Office for Students.

NOTES

The headlines is from a quote by ex-Norwich City manager Daniel Farke responding to claims of complacency in October 2020. They were promoted that year. Then relegated the next season with Farke leaving in November 2021.
Financial information about the University, Vice-Chancellor emoluments and other compensation are taken from the University Financial Statements
Information about INTO UEA is taken from the annual returns to Companies House.

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

Amendments

On 2 March the reference in the third paragraph from the end to the constituency MP was amended to Clive Lewis (from Charles Lewis).

More unity, less inaction needed from UK higher education

By Alan Preece published in University World News on 18 March 2022

United Kingdom higher education responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine reflect the inability of the community to respond collectively, promptly or effectively to issues of importance. Umbrella groups and individual institutions stalled and prevaricated as they lagged behind other countries in responding to demands for concerted action.

It may have been a failure of planning, but other recent sector-wide issues suggest it may be a systemic point of failure in a sector where self-regulation and self-interest encourage inaction and obfuscation.

Fail to plan, plan to fail

The invasion started on 24 February, but the first statement by Universities UK was not until 28 February, which was an age given the potential to plan ahead and consider how to respond.

Even slower was the Russell Group, which did not manage a public response until 7 March, after the media had featured their lack of even the most basic of statements. Two weeks after the invasion there was still no statement on the Russell Group website.

By contrast, on the day after the invasion, the German Ministry of Education and Research said: “All current and planned activities with Russia are being frozen and subjected to critical review. There will be no new activities until further notice.”

By 4 March, the European Union had “decided to halt cooperation with Russian entities in research, science and innovation”, which included halting payments under existing contracts as well as making no new agreements. The Netherlands, Slovenia, Denmark and Lithuania had all reached the same position.

Universities UK was obliged to update its position when the Russian Union of Rectors (RUR) issued a statement on 4 March supporting “the Russian army and President Vladimir Putin’s decision to take military action in Ukraine”.

The response was to suspend a memorandum of understanding between Universities UK and the RUR, which coincided with the decision of the European University Association (of which Universities UK is a member) to suspend membership of 12 Russian university signatories. The sense of being bounced into defensive action rather than anticipating and leading continued to prevail.

Waiting is the hardest part

Perhaps UK higher education took its slow-walk lead from the glacial response of elements of the UK government.

On 27 February George Freeman MP, parliamentary under-secretary of state for science, research and innovation, tweeted that he had instigated a “rapid … review of all Russian beneficiaries (whether academic collaborators, companies or directors) of UK science, research, technology and innovation funding”.

By 7 March UK Research and Innovation was “pausing all payments to grants with potential Russian partners”, but saying, “we await further [British] government advice”.

More than two weeks later neither Freeman, UK Research and Innovation, nor the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy had deigned to update their websites on the progress of the “rapid” review or its consequences.

Secretary of State for Education Nadhim Zahawi appears to have been sidelined from this issue, but recently promised to “crack down hard” on academics referred to by party colleague Robert Halfon MP as “useful idiots” for Putin. This looks like pandering to media attention rather than taking meaningful decisions about whether UK university links with Russian institutions are appropriate.

This may be another factor behind the delays by some UK universities in taking decisive action. Professor Colin Riordan, vice-chancellor of Cardiff University, a member of the Russell Group, told The Guardian on 4 March that “if the government were to tell his university to cut ties with Russia, it would do so because of the ‘bigger things at stake’.”

Professor Steve West, the president of the vice-chancellors’ group Universities UK, said: “I think we have to expect science sanctions … what is happening is a challenge on democracy and the safety and stability of the free world.”

At face value we appear to have institutions that are proud to promote their status as self-governing and autonomous, delaying taking decisive action until the government tells them what to do. Even when they acknowledge the threat to “the safety and stability of the free world” and the “bigger things at stake”, they seem unable to make a decision.

Governments in other countries may have recognised the capacity of universities to prevaricate and been wise to simply take the decision out of their hands.

At the individual university level, a number of institutions have demonstrated it is entirely possible to act promptly and with vigour. On 28 February the University of Warwick was reviewing all Russian links with a view to “terminating contracts where possible”. As early as 4 March the universities of Aberdeen, St Andrews and Dundee confirmed they had already cut ties with Russia and Edinburgh University was reviewing its investment stake in Sberbank.

By contrast, some universities have made no public statement, even of support for Ukraine, or have relied on the backstop position provided by Universities UK.

Keele University says: “We are working closely with other institutions in the UK higher education sector to coordinate our response.” This implies a joined-up response that is not evident in reality and exposes the tensions inherent in the sector.

A pattern of behaviour

For those who think this failure to unify is only a feature of a crisis, it is worth considering two other recent and important issues.

On 16 January 2022, six universities signed a pledge agreeing that victims of sexual harassment in universities should no longer be silenced by non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). It was wholeheartedly supported by Higher Education Minister Michelle Donelan, the National Union of Students and Universities UK, who claim to be the “collective voice” of 140 universities.

By 16 March, two months later, only 42 universities had signed the pledge which is held on the Can’t Buy My Silence website. It is difficult to think of anything simpler than committing to collective action on an issue of this type. Perhaps the reasons lie in the self-interest of a sector where a BBC News investigation in 2020 found nearly a third of universities had used NDAs for student grievances in a four-year period.

Back in 2020 there was pressure to stop the use of ‘conditional unconditional’ offers, with the higher education minister, the Office for Students and the National Union of Students agreeing they put students under undue pressure.

The practice was banned by the Office for Students from July 2020 to September 2021 and, following a Universities UK review, a new Fair Admissions Code of Practice was launched in March 2022. Despite the fanfare, the code is not compulsory and at the present time there is no indication on the websites of either Universities UK or co-developers GuildHE of who has signed up.

As recently as February 2022, the higher education minister had written to the University of Portsmouth, which continues to defend the use of such offers.

It is difficult to see that a code of conduct demonstrating the “higher education sector’s commitment to fair and transparent admissions practices” should be a matter of debate or contention. However, some in the sector stand by their option to secure competitive or other advantages by resisting uniform regulation or action in the interests of students.

Suspending links with universities significantly controlled by the Russian government, eradicating NDAs that silence victims of sexual harassment, and not agreeing to stop using conditional unconditional offers are obviously quite different examples. However, it is difficult to resist the argument that, even under situations where the free world’s “safety and stability” is at stake, the UK higher education sector needs to be told what to do.

It would seem better if they worked out how to act as a collective before they find patience wearing thin and face a more direct approach to their decision-making.

Alan Preece is an expert in global education, business transformation and operational management and runs the blogging site View from a Bridge.

UniVanity League Table

Unveiling a new league table and asking people to look is a bit like extolling the virtues of a spare tyre. It’s not needed for any functional purpose, takes up space that could be used for better purposes and does not assist with current performance. Little wonder that about 30% of new cars don’t have one and something of surprise that university league tables continue to proliferate with the support and knowing glances of institutions that should know better.

The UniVanity League Table emerges from a review of the 141 institutional strategic plans and home pages of universities who are members of UUK. The table reflects a mixture of fact at a point in time, a scoring system* laced with bias, and an entirely personal component to replicate those well-established rankings that rely on questionnaire responses. It’s a similar methodology (or ‘mythology’ as a US News and World Report ex-editor told Malcolm Gladwell) to many of the major league tables.

53 of 141 institutions reviewed used rankings from major league tables** on their home page but, the UniVanity Table focuses on 27 who state that achieving a ranking, either explicitly or implicitly in a main league table, is a strategic objective. Elevating pursuit of rankings to this level looks, in many cases, like a vanity project and is certainly a distraction from the core business of a university. If fox-hunting is the ‘unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable’, chasing rankings may be considered the insecure in pursuit of the unnecessary.

Readers can be assured that this table, unlike most others, is made available without advertising from institutions and will not be developed or exploited for commercial gain or to build a database of students, parents, agents or government officials who might look at it. A celebratory event may be held if a sufficient number of universities are willing to invest their scarce resources to buy a table of ten at an appropriately salubrious London venue where they can eat, drink and dance the night away.

UNIVANITY LEAGUE TABLE 2022

University	Stated Aim	Score
Southampton	top 10 UK and towards a top 50 internationally	26
Bristol	firmly established among the world’s top-50 universities (draft)	23
Durham	The Times/Sunday Times League Tables Top 5	22
Queen’s Belfast	top 175 in global league tables	21
Birmingham	within the top 50 global institutions in the leading international tables	20
Plymouth	Top 30 in national league tables Top 250 in international ranking	20
Manchester	in the top 25 in leading international rankings	18
Glasgow Caledonian	Annual improvement in Impact Rankings score	18
Lancaster	progress towards a top 100 position in key global rankings	14
East Anglia	as a top 20 university in all of the main UK university league tables	14
Essex	top 25 Times Good University Guide..top 200 Times Higher Education World Rankings	14
Liverpool	among the top 20 UK universities in the world rankings	14
Central Lancashire	League table ranking (Guardian, Times, GUG)	14
Heriot Watt	World University ranking top 250	13
West of Scotland	recognised as a world leading university ranked inside the top 200	13
Cardiff	UK top 20 in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide..world top 200..QS World University Rankings..TimesHigher Education World University Rankings, the Academic Ranking of World Universities and the Best Global Universities Ranking, and in the top 100 of at least one of these	12
City	Top 20 in the Times and Sunday Times University League Table	11
West London	KPI – Aggregate League table position Top 50	11
Solent	Times Higher Education Impact Rankings Top third of rankings	11
Surrey	reaching the top 200 in THE and QS, and the top 300 in ARWU	8
Huddersfield	Top 300 Times and QS World University Rankings	8
Liverpool John Moores	reputation reflected in..THE WUR: performance of disciplines in Times and Sunday Times	8
South Bank	being in the top 500 QS and THE rankings	8
Newcastle	global Top 100 as measured by at least one of the main university rankings	7
Royal College of Art	number 1 for art and design in the QS World University Rankings. The College will occupy the same position in 2021	7
Buckingham New	80th or better in aggregate across league tables	5
Stirling	one of the top 25 universities in the UK	4

You had one eye in the mirror**

Russell Group universities dominate the table with all top five places and nine of the overall positions which suggests that they feel a real need for external validation. It’s a reminder of the old McKinsey hiring dictum to recruit people who are “smart…driven by their insecurity;and..competitive”. Institutions that are in a club claiming to be for the “UK’s leading research-focused universities” should probably feel more comfortable in their quality.

The Group has always been slightly ambivalent about league tables with various press releases making the point that “League tables shouldn’t be used in isolation to make judgements about the quality of an institution..” (2015) and “Ranking universities is fraught with difficulties..” (2014). Perhaps it is the division in the views of the members themselves that has caused the Group to be silent on the issue in recent years. It is also something that Universities UK seems to steer well clear of with a search showing no comments on rankings and league tables at all.

Well you’re where you should be all the time

Tom Peter’s book What Gets Measured Gets Done borrowed the phrase from what he considers the soundest piece of management advice he ever heard, which is why it matters when universities elect to chase specific league table targets. With many strategic plans reaching a decade into the future it is just possible that the real driver is the ease with which current management can make supposedly visionary statements with no accountability for delivery. There is also a good deal of fudging of the actual measurement leaving future reporting to decide which table to report against.

Durham University’s strategy set a target to be Top 5 in the Times/Sunday Times league table by 2027 which could reflect that this is a much easier set of parameters to manage than the THE World Rankings where the institution’s position dropped from 96 to 162 from 2017 to 2022.

Liverpool takes a more nuanced stance in wanting to achieve “a UK top 20 worldwide ranking in a recognised international league table by 2026.” At one level this suggests that it is content to see its global position decline as long as other UK universities see the same or greater decline in their position. In the THE World Rankings the university was 25^th in the UK and its overall world position had fallen from 158 to 178 since 2017.

Birmingham has made some progress but is falling some way short of its stated ambition of “..ranking within the top 50 global institutions in the leading international tables”. Since 2017, they have moved from 130 to 105 in the THE but have fallen from 79 to 90 in the QS rankings since 2019 and have been becalmed in the 101-150 ranking of AWRU for the last five years. The timescale for achieving top 50 is 2030 but the incoming Vice Chancellor must be wondering how the growing strength of other countries will mitigate against further progress.

The great shame is that each university has a Strategic Plan that is choc full of ideas, creativity, energy and brilliant stories of how they intend to make students, the economy and the world better off. These are good reasons that holding the institutions sense of worth, progress and well being ransom to a vainglorious punt on league tables makes so little sense.

You Gave Away the Things You Loved

Reviewing over 140 university Strategic Plans is a reminder of the transformative power that institutions have and the tradition of diversity, quality and excellence that they offer. It reminded me of Sir Howard Newby, then chief executive of HEFCE, commenting that, “I think the English – and I do mean the English – do have a genius for turning diversity into hierarchy..”. Perhaps the league table compilers play on this genius to tempt universities into trading instincts for collaboration and cooperation for a system that encourages game playing and one upmanship.

Whatever the reason, the willingness to be judged by external forces seems contrary to the notion of universities as autonomous, self-governing institutions. The sector has, over time, grumbled mightily about REF, teaching quality framework, NSS and others, so willingly paying homage at the altar of QS, THE, AWUR et al seems out of character. It is reasonable to measure progress but there are many more targeted mechanisms for determining performance.

By engaging so actively and giving prominence to league tables, universities are also giving significant opportunities for the commercialization of data from potential students. It is another example of a sector which is struggling to come to terms with the reality that for many organizations education has become just another business opportunity. External investment and for-profit organizations are very welcome where they serve the interests of students, research and teaching but the sector should act collectively to prevent exploitation and ensure that it receives a reasonable slice of any revenue being generated.

Notes

* The final score is generated from six categories. These are: mention (explicit or implicit) of ranking/tables as a measure of performance in the strategic plan; whether the strategic plan was downloadable/easily searchable; how many years are left on the plan; whether rankings were mentioned on the university homepage; Russell Group membership and; whether the compiler had visited the campus and enjoyed the experience.

**’main league table’ generally refers to those published by Times Higher Education, QS Quacquarelli Symonds, or Academic World University Ranking by Shanghai Rankings or in the UK by major national newspapers or the Complete University Guide.

***Sub-headings are, aptly, from You’re So Vain, a song by Carly Simon and released in 1972. It topped the charts in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and sparked years of speculations as to its subject. Simon has gone as far as to say that the song is about three men and Warren Beatty is one (verse two). Separately, she said the ‘apricot scarf’ was worn by American writer, Nick Delbanco.

****If any of the universities listed feel I have misunderstood the intention of their strategic plan or referred to an incorrect/out of date version I will be happy to receive authoritative corrections and note them on this blog.

International students: UK must make hay while the sun shines

Louise Nicol and Alan Preece First printed in University World News 18 September 2021

Champagne glasses were raised at the PIEoneer Awards in London’s Guildhall on 3 September, a sparkling event where many higher education colleagues were able to mingle face to face in the United Kingdom for the first time in almost two years. The event was directly followed by the release of the Universities UK International (UUKi) and IDP Connect paper, “International Student Recruitment: Why aren’t we second? Part 2”.

This was not meant to throw a damp blanket over the celebrations but was rather a dose of reality as hangovers subsided. In truth, the reality is that the UK is probably already second, given that one of their main competitors, Australia, is on the ropes and the paper does not criticise a lack of ambition in the government’s plan to attract 600,000 international students by 2030. It is time for the sector to be more ambitious and answer the question: How and where can we be first?

Despite the challenges of this year, UK higher education has emerged from the global pandemic largely unscathed in contrast to the competition. International student numbers were challenged in 2020-21, but applications and acceptance data from UCAS is hard proof that the UK in 2021 is an attractive and welcoming destination for international students. Despite political tensions, the UK’s relationship with China seems to have weathered the storm, something which cannot be said for Australia, Canada or the United States.

The UK is the leading destination for Chinese students this year and that is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. An Education International Cooperation Group survey found, for the third consecutive year, that the UK achieved favoured status – something previously held by the United States. Nearly 30% of students preferred Britain, 24.5% favoured the US and 16.5% chose Australia, with Canada 15.8% coming in fourth.

There’s further good news for the UK, with applications from India up 13% and we see a significant jump in applications from emerging markets – for example, Nigeria is up 83% and Pakistan is up 53%. When one considers deferrals from 2020-21 and record UK applications to university for this academic year, all in the garden looks rosy for UK institutions. Furthermore, when one looks at UK population data, the next nine years could see a record number of 18-year-olds looking to enter higher education.

There has, of course, been a dramatic fall of 57% in European Union enrolments in the UK following Brexit, due to the fact that EU students are now subject to international tuition fees. While reduced European numbers have hurt diversity and quality, we tend to concur with Nick Hillman at the Higher Education Policy Institute, who predicted way back in 2017 that Brexit would not be a disaster for UK universities. Hillman suggested that, in the medium to long term, UK universities are likely to benefit from increased revenue from European students paying the same international fees as their non-EU compatriots.

Universities will need as much international fee income as they can get their hands on to smooth any bumps in the road caused by the possible and, in our view likely, implementation of the proposal from the Philip Augar review of tertiary education funding that domestic tuition fees should be reduced to £7,500 (US$10,400). If this is the case, even if EU enrolment is reduced by 50%, EU students will be paying almost double the domestic tuition fees, which will compensate for the loss in numbers, if not diversity, on UK campuses.

Long-term challenges – and solutions

But the higher education sector would do well to heed the advice that first appeared in writing in John Heywood’s 1546 book on English proverbs – “make hay while the sun shines”.

By the time they get to 2030 the number of domestic 18-year-olds will begin to decline and, long before then, the Australians and New Zealanders will have fought back from their self-imposed exile. Anyone who remembers how the Aussies saw a decrease of more than 100,000 international enrolments from 2009 to 2012 won’t forget how they bounced back with an increase of 370,000 in the following seven years.

No doubt America will be back in the international game, having suffered from a declining domestic college-aged population and the hangover of the Donald Trump administration. We already see the beginnings of this. Kamala Harris’s recent trip to Southeast Asia indicates the pivotal role that the US sees ASEAN playing in future economic development and growth. One can also not bet against Canada, whose proactive education policies linked to migration will play a key role in international student mobility for the foreseeable future.

So, with resurgent international student enrolments and a runway of nine years until the boom in 18-year-old home students falls away, what should the UK be doing to establish and maintain a strategic advantage?

First, we need robust, representative, time-series data on international student outcomes. Most students will still return to their home country after study and it is a shocking indictment that the Higher Education Statistics Agency, Jisc and the Office for Students have been unwilling or unable to collect appropriate records.

Most students taking advantage of post-study work opportunities in the UK will also return home and the UUKi and IDP Connect research shows that post-study work can advantage them as they build their careers. Unfortunately, at the present time there is a total lack of insight as to how it advantages them, with no data on career outcomes and progression or the return on investment of a UK degree over an international graduate’s lifetime.

Second, the government needs to encourage and support the sector in building its soft power overseas. Global Britain should not be about a defensive island nation but about a new type of worldwide superpower that is linked with business and politics through smart graduates who recognise the quality of education they received.

Data again is the key. Government and institutions need to fully understand the strength of the UK international alumni network and utilise its links with industry to drive inward investment and international trade. The UK’s head start in transnational education offers a massive advantage if it exploits it effectively.

Thirdly, we need to throw off constraints and minimalist thinking. Make the target 750,000 international students and introduce the sound and sensible measures proposed by UUKi and IDP Connect, but also bring together establishment doyens and a new breed of innovative thinkers and actors – “a brains trust” that understands what it takes to be internationally ambitious.

Brexit was meant to be about taking back control rather than ceding ground and our universities offer the opportunity to launch global activities from a position of authority and excellence.

The late American writer and humourist Lewis Grizzard is credited with popularising the phrase: “Unless you’re the lead dog, the scenery never changes.” What the UK really needs to do is change the scenery through bold strategic action.

We should define metrics – the best graduate outcomes, the strongest transnational education, the fastest growth and others – which allow us to compare and benchmark our relative performance. But we should also strike out to be first in every market possible as well as at the top of comparable measures.

It is the first time in a decade that the UK has had this chance and the hay is there for the making.

Louise Nicol is founder of Asia Careers Group SDN BHD. Alan Preece is an expert in global education, business transformation and operational management and runs the blogging site View from a Bridge.

Image by pasja1000 from Pixabay

Brass in Yocket for Aggregator Founders*

Having recently delved into ApplyBoard and Study Portals it was Yocket’s turn to go under the computer mouse. Reportedly, started in 2012 with $136USD (less than £100GBP) the company claimed over $1m revenue in 2020 and a plan to get to over $10m in three years. Various internet searches have not found references to other external funding in support of the company, so it looks like the founders are backing themselves.

Described as a ‘one stop study abroad solution’ Yocket focuses on candidates from India and suggests it has registered more than 400,000 since 2015. The company name is a word play on the company being a ‘rocket’ for students to meet their aspiration. It claims to have ‘tied-up’ with over 100 universities in the UK, US, Canada and Australia although the nature of the engagement and the split by country are not transparent. Yocket is part of Avocation Education Services Private Limited (Avocation) which also owns Stupidsid** which was also started by the founders.

Yocket’s model would appear to be focused on being a ‘student aggregator’ making money by selling added value services rather than an ‘agent aggregator’ trying to attract recruitment agents. There is a clear attempt to build a revenue stream from universities but this appears to have had limited success with only 42 in the ‘Apply through Yocket’ list and limited institutional activity on the site. Before universities go rushing in to fill that void they may want to consider some features of the site and what their brand will be associated with.

Data Management and Use

One of the emerging concerns about aggregator sites is their use of data and Yocket’s site demands an email as the price of doing any search and engages the user in giving more personal details at every opportunity. An email, phone number and other details allows you to set up an account and “By creating an account you agree to Yocket’s Terms of use and Privacy policy. Attempts to click on the links to read these take the user on a circular route back to the initial sign on page which may be a glitch but is unhelpful.

However, the Privacy Policy is available through an internet search and is the same as that of Avocation in giving broad opportunities for the use of data, such as making it available to ‘third party service providers’ as well as to advertisers including financial services. It notes that ‘Avocation Educational Services Private Limited’ reserves the right to update, change or modify this policy at any time.’ The Terms of Use can also be found and note that, “It cannot be guaranteed that the material, information, links, and content presented on and by this website is comprehensive, complete, accurate, sufficient, timely, or up to date for any particular purpose or use.”

Given that students going to the site are expecting accurate and comprehensive information about any country that they hope to study in this seems problematic. The information provides the basis for the potential student spending money on other services, such as Yocket Premium or finding a loan, so there should at least be some sense of responsibility. As the test searches outlined below suggest, there is some way to go before the information available provides full confidence.

In Search of Substance

A search for universities in the UK provided a list of 124 institutions – well short of the number of degree-awarding institutions in the country. The opportunity to search by private universities only provided information on Ecole de Management de Normandie, Oxford and Arden University. There was no mention at all of sector notables such as BPP and the University of Law (one of Arden’s siblings in the Global University Systems family).

Oddities in the UK public university listings included:

– Northumbria (Amsterdam) listed as one of the three for the institution.

– Nottingham Trent, Aston and Birmingham each having two locations listed

– University of Buckingham, a private university, appears in the list of public universities

The listing of each institution comprised a fuzzy photo of something that looks like a university with the university logo superimposed on top of it. Adding to the general sense of low-resolution and compromise on detail is that 12 of the universities had no logo shown and 47 of the universities had no indicative tuition fee shown. That might be a blessing for anyone interested in accuracy and quality of information.

There is a feature which allows a search by Low, Medium or High Price and this has several anomalies. The most obvious shows Kings College London as having an international tuition fee of £9,250. A fee of £20,790 for classroom based international undergraduate students appears to be the starting point at this venerable London institution.

Thirty institutions are listed in the Medium price sector but only one makes it to be shown as High Price. The University of Bristol occupies this category with a tuition fee that the site suggests is £72,000 when the university’s published undergraduate classroom based BSc is 20,100 and an MSc in Management at £26,500.

The low-priced list did not include the University of Chester which has a rate of £12,750 for international students which is lower than the £13,000 shown (correctly) for Teeside University. All of this suggests that AI or machine learning is being used to find information on university sites it needs some fine tuning. If it’s human research then the quality control needs to be stepped up. It’s currently misleading to students and potentially damaging to university recruitment hopes.

Going to North America

The search for top universities in the USA offered up 242 universities with Harvard, MIT and Stanford at the top but one for “popular universities” listed 659 with Northeastern, Texas A&M and University of Texas at Dallas at the top. The first two are among those among the 42 listed on the Apply to Universities via Yocket page which suggests there may be a closer relationship between institution and aggregator.

Perhaps surprisingly given the world rankings, Canada has 194 ‘top universities’ listed which is exactly the same as the number shown as ‘popular’. The University of British Columbia Vancouver and the University of Western Ontario are at the top of both lists but there is no description of how a university gets on one or the other list. Neither university is on the 42 listed on the “Apply to Universities via Yocket” page.

Generally speaking, the pictures and the logos for the USA and Canada are in better shape than those for the UK. The site also provides further counselling if you are “Confused about which country to pick?” but this requires upgrading to Yocket Premium. The paucity of filters to offer comparisons make it difficult to make any sort of well-informed choice without taking that step.

Clicking through to the university page from the search does give the added information about how many ‘Yocketers’ have applied and how many have been accepted as well as their average GRE quant score. There’s also some information on scholarships available. Just out of interest the claim is that 99 have applied to Harvard’s School of Engineering with 17 admitted and 222 have applied to MIT’s School of Engineering with 14 admitted. Whether or not they chose to use Yocket’s other services or counselling is not made clear.

Further Insights

The application to universities service is currently limited to 42 institutions with only the universities of Wolverhampton, Sheffield, Huddersfield and Essex listed for the UK. These universities do not appear to receive special treatment in other search facilities on the site and the nature of the relationship is unclear. A 5 May 2020 blog post on the site in the Applying to Universities section indicates a session with University of Essex where participants may receive an “on the spot offer” depending on eligibility.

In answering the question Why Should I Choose Yocket? the company says that it has “..been a helpful companion to 300,000+ study abroad aspirants since 2016. Through a powerful network of students and machine learning algorithms, yocket empowers you to make informed decisions to your educational pursuits.” The critical question for many observers might be whether or not the platform and its current capabilities is enabling sufficient information for an informed decision.

An interesting feature and highly relevant given the power of peer-to-peer recommendations is the ‘Trending Yocketers’ section which allows direct connection to a candidate who is looking to study at a specific university. This is supplemented by a Discussions thread where candidates can pose questions in the hope that a peer will respond.

Yocket may be planning to upgrade the site in the near future. A blog on 27 April invites interest from users willing to participate in the Yocket Hydrogen Beta version. It is described as “an upgraded platform that is better in design, experience and features”. With the anticipated growth in India students travelling abroad to study this would seem a reasonable investment.

Some Thoughts

Yocket’s story is well known and it has recently announced plans to recruit 300 more staff in 2021 and a further 1,000 over three years. It has presented itself as enhancing student services in a disorganized market dominated by agents, where students were often misguided. It is reasonable to believe that the development of an online service provides access to more people but this, in itself, does not mean that students are better advised or informed.

It is difficult to know how the information about universities is being gathered and the extent to which it is verified to allow reasonable comparisons. Whether the other Yocket services – such as premium service at a reported £500 per student – gives well-founded counselling is also hard to know. The company’s 7^th Annual Virtual Meet Up in March 2021 claims to have gathered 40 universities from the US, UK, France and New Zealand and over 4,000 students, so the demand would seem to be there.

From the point of view of institutions news stories have indicated that universities can get directly involved for between $1,000 and $10,000 dollars. This gets access to services that reach out to students in a growing market and may be tempting. Institutions who choose to engage might consider learning how data is used and the terms under which additional services, particularly loans, are being offered.

There are also questions about the levels of transparency, the comprehensiveness of coverage and the quality of information available. For universities who have not given permission for their brands to be used it may be time to consider whether the format and presentation is acceptable and they should certainly check the details given about them. Aggregators are using university names and logos as bait for students and then selling other services so it would be reasonable to take an assertive stance.

The overall impression is that Yocket started as a page allowing students to exchange information about universities and has become a business operating in one of the fastest growing student recruiting markets in the world. The founders have commented extensively on their desire to ensure a more accessible and better organized service for students than they believe many recruitment agents have offered. These are fine principles but operationalizing them probably requires more attention to detail than is currently evident on the site.

NOTES

1. *For those unfamiliar with popular music “Brass in Pocket” is a 1979 single by The Pretenders. Apparently, lead singer Chrissie Hynde overheard someone enquiring if anyone had, “Picked up dry cleaning? Any brass in pocket?” Brass is Northern English slang for money but is used idiomatically in several other ways including “brass neck” to mean showing a lot of nerve.

** Stupidsid.com started in February 2010 as a college review website with students’ opinions on colleges, courses and universities. It has developed to provide Study Resources (including solved question papers, university syllabuses and previous questions) and Knowledge Hub (claimed to be the “largest database of engineering-related information you’ll ever come across.”)

2. Searches were carried out on various browsers over the period from 13 to 17 May.

Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

Divergent EU Enrollments Create Opportunity and Risk

My recent blog on the significant underlying shifts in recruitment from China and India provoked some interest in what might be happening in other markets. Generally speaking, the traditional international student markets are too small to move the needle in quite the same way as the big two. But the main European Union (EU) markets throw up some interesting trends.

It shows what is at stake for some UK universities, particularly financially, if they begin to lose students from countries where they have made substantial gains in recent years. This may be, at least in part, an explanation for some of the decisions being taken to discriminate in favour of EU students against other international students by allowing them to continue with home student fees. It will be interesting to see if there is a legal challenge to this activity or whether such arrangements move from transitional to permanent after 2021.

According to HESA data, Poland, Romania, Portugal and Spain have shown the largest growth in enrollments from EU countries over the past five years. Numbers from Germany, Ireland and Cyprus have been in decline over that period while Italy and France have seen growing numbers at a lower level. The January 2021 UCAS data shows a 40% year on year decrease in EU undergraduate applications for entry in Autumn 2021 which is largely driven by the reality of most universities charging them international fees.

TABLE 1: Total Enrollments – Largest Growth Countries

Source: HESA

But as Table 2 shows the overall numbers do not reflect the pattern of growth from each country with Spain, while remaining the top overall sender of the four, seeing its year-on-year growth rate decline for each of the past four years. Poland has also seen its growth slowing each year during the same period. Portugal has grown most strongly for the past three years and Romania has had robust growth for the past two reported cycles.

TABLE 2: Year on Year Increase in Enrollments – Largest Growth Countries

Source: HESA

The most interesting thing is where the growth has occurred. Total UK enrollments from Romania grew by 2025 students between 2017/18 and 2019/20 with 76% of the increase going to the universities of Bedfordshire and Suffolk. It is worth noting that in both universities the overwhelming majority of enrolled Romanian students are full-time, undergraduates which brings significant benefits in terms of stability and income.

Over the five years Bedfordshire’s enrollment of home students has declined by 600 while EU numbers have increased by 1330. European enrollments have meant that the university’s tuition fee income from combined home and EU students rose by £20m (27%) between 2018 and 2020. It is a major achievement for a university ranked 123^rd of 130 by the Complete University Guide in 2021.

TABLE 3 – Enrollments from Romania – UK Total and Top Two Universities

Source: HESA

A similar but less extreme situation occurs with enrollments from Portugal where Coventry and Anglia Ruskin have taken 35% of additional enrollments in the past two years.

TABLE 4 – Enrollments from Portugal – UK Total and Top Two Universities

Source: HESA

Enrollments from Poland, where total growth has been declining for each of the past four reported cycles shows a less distinct pattern. Taken over five years, Coventry and De Montfort have grown their Polish contingent more rapidly than any other universities. Their combined share of the growth both over the full period and in the last two years is around 23%.

TABLE 5 – Enrollments from Poland – UK Total and Top Two Universities

Source: HESA

Enrollments from Spain appear to be much more evenly distributed with well-ranked universities being to the fore but notable exceptions are Anglia Ruskin and University College Birmingham over the five-year period. No university in the UK has lost more than 50 students in their enrolled numbers of Spanish students in that time despite the slowing growth.

TABLE 6 – Growth in Enrollments from Spain – Top Ten Universities

	Enrollment 2019/20	Increase 2015/16 to 2019/20
Anglia Ruskin	240	190
Warwick	285	165
Edinburgh	360	150
Sussex	200	130
Manchester	325	125
University College Birmingham	140	110
King’s College London	340	110
UCL	375	110
Imperial	420	105
Lancaster	225	105

Source: HESA

The impact of growth from European Union countries may well be a driver of decisions to continue to offer favourable terms to EU students over other international students in 2021. However, it seems short-sighted and even counter-productive financially to offer blanket discounts if the main sending markets are limited to one or two countries. Over the longer term it seems inevitable that less economically advantaged areas of Europe will continue to see advantageous tuition fee discounts if UK universities want to maintain enrollments.

Another factor that may be worthy of consideration is that changes to post-work study visas may prove attractive to some European Union students even after Brexit. Portugal and Romania remain below the European average in terms of GDP while Poland and Spain are above it and the opportunity to find work in the UK may continue to support growth. But we may also have to place that potential against rising unemployment for 16-24 year old’s in the UK (up to 14.3% in February 2021 compared to 11.3% in February 2020) and the economic uncertainties post-Brexit and post-pandemic in summer of 2021.

It seems likely that the story of recruitment from the European Union has several more cycles to play out. With rising numbers of 18-year-olds in the UK the political nuances of allowing EU students to take places at the same fee as home students while not expanding provision for home students may also bring rising tensions. There are no easy choices here.

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

INDIA OVERTAKING CHINA AS KEY STUDENT MARKET MAY BE A GAME CHANGER FOR LOWER RANKED UNIVERSITIES

A year ago seems an age away but in January 2020 I was speculating about how the surge of student mobility from India might change the UK higher education sector in terms of demographics and financial benefit. At that point I described the HESA data as ‘tantalising’ but with the 2019/20 enrollment data available by country and university it’s clear that things have moved quickly. And there may also be lessons for US universities to consider as they ponder their post-pandemic international recruitment strategies.

The top line numbers from HESA DATA show that the total number of Indian students enrolled in UK higher education grew by 27960 (101.7%) between 2018/19 and 2019/20 compared to a growth of 20,790 (17.2%) for Chinese students. For each country the growth in the number of undergraduates year on year was around 8,000 but India had an additional 19,000+ enrolled graduates year on year compared to around 12,000 for China. It is the first sign of a new order for markets of origin with India sending over 5,000 more first year students than China in 2019.

More importantly, the distribution of Indian students by type of institution has proved to be significantly different to that of Chinese students. One way to illustrate this is a comparison between the universities that saw the biggest year on year growth in each. It is striking that all of the universities with the greatest increase in the number of Chinese students are in the Russell Group but none of those with the most significant increases in Indian students are in the Group.

TABLE 1: Top Ten overall increases for Chinese and Indian Enrollments between 2018/19 and 2019/20

	Change in total enrolled Chinese student yoy from 2018/19 to 2019/20	Change in total enrolled Indian students yoy from 2018/19 to 2019/20
Edinburgh	1410	50
East London	-15	1710
Leeds	1235	45
Bedfordshire	30	1595
Southampton	1190	-10
Hertfordshire	-135	1575
Sheffield	1150	15
Northumbria	90	1510
UCL	1065	25
Kingston	160	1265
Manchester	885	75
Ulster	-15	1230
Birmingham	860	10
Central Lancashire	-105	1180
Newcastle	855	50
Middlesex	-110	915
Kings College	725	50
Greenwich	-185	840
Nottingham	725	30
Coventry	-85	810

Note: To maintain consistency private and specialist universities excluded from table. Of the private universities BPP registered a year on year growth of 1640 from India but a fall of 95 from China. The London based University of the Arts showed a year on year growth of 790 from China and an additional 70 from India.

Source: HESA

Digging deeper indicates that location is not the main driver of these vastly differentiated enrollment patterns. The situation for several cities with two main universities is shown below. Manchester Metropolitan shows relatively balanced numbers but they are small changes and the differential is swamped by the University of Manchester’s growth in Chinese students.

TABLE 2: Selected cities showing change in university enrollments year on year

	China – student change yoy	India – student change yoy
Birmingham	860	75
Birmingham City	50	800
Nottingham	725	50
Nottingham Trent	-150	270
Manchester	885	25
Manchester Metropolitan	50	70
Sheffield	1150	-10
Sheffield Hallam	-135	185

Source: HESA

What becomes clear is that lower ranked universities are securing a significantly greater proportion of the growth in Indian students. This supports the notion that the changing importance of the two main source markets could have a major impact on the financial strength in different parts of the sector. But the underlying drivers of the recruitment patterns are less obvious.

It is likely that lower ranked universities represent better value for money in terms of fees, accommodation and other costs of study which is likely to be particularly attractive to self-funding students. There is also a propensity for lower ranked universities to make offers at lower grades which means a less competitive route to selection and enrollment. Several are located in areas that the UK census has shown have strong communities with contacts in India but that would not explain the differences within cities that have two universities.

The differences in performance are very striking and it raises a number of questions about the longer- term strategy of universities that are not currently recruiting heavily from the Indian market. It seems possible that as numbers from China stabilise or even go into decline there will be greater competition for the growing numbers from India. It is probably best for lower-ranked universities to make the most of this moment in the sun but if they have the opportunity to develop a solid local community and optimise their contacts with alumni the impact may be long lasting.

More troubling for some universities might be their failure to recruit strongly from either of these major markets in 2019/20. There are some well-known names and reasonably ranked institutions that seem to be suffering as the big city Russell Group universities excel in recruiting students from China but who do not appear attractive to students from India. It is interesting but seems counter intuitive that the two with the greatest loss from China year on year are partnered with pathway operators with traditional strengths in the country.

TABLE 3: Universities with the largest year on year loss of students from China (2018-19 to 2019-20)

University	China – year on year change in total enrollments	India – year on year change in total enrollments
Sussex	– 340	10
East Anglia	– 260	40
Hull	– 200	5

NOTE: I’d like to commend the University of Hull for their experiment in charging postgraduates starting in 2021 the same as Home students. It will be interesting to see how it works out.

Source: HESA

As noted the University of Hull has embarked on an aggressive marketing ploy to charge postgraduate students the same fee as home students in 2021. As far as I am aware this is unique in the UK higher education system and it will be interesting to see how it works out. It’s certainly better than those universities that will continue to discriminate in favour of all European Union students who are now deemed international but are being allowed home student rates.

For UK universities there is unlikely to be any Government opposition to the growing numbers although experience shows it’s always possible for U-turns in policy. As recently as 4 March, 2021, Minister for Future Borders and Immigration Kevin Foster said, “As we rebuild from the global pandemic we want the world’s brightest talent, who aspire to a career at the highest levels of business, science, the arts and technology to see our United Kingdom as the natural place to fulfil their aspirations. The changes announced today will ensure once they have received a gold standard qualification from one of our world leading education institutions they can easily secure the status they need to continue living, working and fulfilling their dreams in the UK.”

It sounds great news for recruitment but I am reminded of a Government statement with the words, “We want high quality international students to come here. We want them to study at genuine institutions, whose primary purpose is providing a first class education. And we want the best of them – and only the best of them – to stay on and work here after their studies are complete.” This statement was made by then Home Secretary, The Rt Hon Theresa May, in 2011, shortly before the UK post-study work visa was removed. It would probably only take an economic setback and rising numbers of unemployed graduates to see post-study work for international students being viewed less favourably by a Government that is still posturing about border control.

For US universities keen to make the most of revitalized interest from international students it is worth considering how recent research from IDP might dictate their engagement and offer strategy. A survey of more than 800 prospective international students in more than 40 countries who are interested in studying in the US – with more than half of respondents based in India – found that more than three quarters (76%) have improved perceptions of the US since the 2020 presidential election, with 67% stating they are now more likely to study there. What is clear from the UK experience is that the opportunity to recruit from India is available to almost all institutions if they can get the fundamentals right.

Critically, the emerging facts from the UK suggest that value in the cost of study is likely to be as significant a driver of interest as rankings. Post study work is an important outcome but students, particularly those that are self-financing, will be equally interested in being able to minimize their outgoings during the course. Making appropriate adjustments and moving decisively to work in market with a compelling message will be vital for institutions wanting to maximise international enrollments post-pandemic.