Chair: Daniel Zeichner MP
Panellists:
- Professor Rama Thirunamachandran, Vice-Chancellor, Canterbury Christ Church University
- Susan Lapworth, Chief Executive, Office for Students
- Dr Jo Saxton, Chief Executive, UCAS
- John Gill, Editor, Times Higher Education
Professor Thirunamachandran opened his remarks by stating the metrics by which the UK university system ranked among the top in the word, as well as recent findings by London Economics that the sector made a £130 billion contribution to the UK economy. He mentioned universities’ important role in training the public sector workforce, as well as their position as ‘anchor institutions’ in communities.
Going into the challenges facing universities in 2024, Professor Thirunamachandran spoke about the financial sustainability of universities and referred to the recent PwC report commissioned by Universities UK (UUK) which showed the precarious position of many institutions. The freezing of tuition fees alongside issues with several pension schemes had led to this situation, he thought.
Students were also suffering due to insufficient maintenance loans meaning they had to take on longer hours of paid employment, sometimes to the detriment of their studies. He also mentioned the knock-on effect of financial challenges on students’ mental health.
He warned that some young people were being put off going to university and thought that a decision needed to be made as a country whether more people should have the opportunity to gain higher level skills. A reduction in participation levels would be most likely to affect the least advantaged, he warned.
Moving onto potential solutions, Professor Thirunamachandran stated that addressing the challenges faced by students was the highest priority and suggested introducing means tested maintenances grants and increasing loans. He also thought the general funding model needed amending, possibly including index linking tuition fees with inflation or rebalancing the ratio between the teaching grant and fees.
He suggested that universities needed to change their working practices, in part in the recognition that artificial intelligence (AI) will have a significant impact. Alongside the ‘asks to government’ outlined in his presentation, he urged universities to modernise and increase flexibility. He also made a plea for a more positive narrative about the role of universities amongst policy makers and the media.
Susan Lapworth opened by stating that the Office for Students (OfS), as the regulator, cared a lot about the success of universities and ensuring that regulation did not get in the way of that success.
She covered significant publications, events and decisions that had been made in 2023 including the outcome of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) and the new equality of opportunity risk register. On the latter, she welcomed that institutions were beginning to engage with the new risk register in their Access and Participation Plans (APPs). Looking at the year ahead, Susan reiterated that the two themes the OfS would focus on were quality and equality of opportunity.
She spoke of the challenges that implementing the new free speech function of the regulator would bring, particularly as the cases that would be brought to the OfS would be the most difficult. She encouraged engagement with institutions on this.
On financial sustainability, she stated that the OfS’s report published in May 2023 had found the sector was generally in good financial health but acknowledged there was considerable variation across institutions. She thought the challenges facing the sector were unlikely to be fixed quickly, including by a change of government, and wanted to ensure the regulator understood the stresses facing institutions.
Finally, Susan said the OfS would be developing a new strategy this ready for implementation in 2025. She acknowledged the uncertain policy landscape, in part caused by the upcoming General Election, but said a strategy was necessary to better understand the financial pressures on universities, the diversity of the student body, potential changes to provision through the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) and challenges of AI.
Dr Jo Saxton opened by explaining that 25% of students submit their applications in the seven days before the UCAS deadline. There were particular challenges in forecasting trends this year due to many schools going back later after Christmas and the later than usual deadline.
There were however some positive signs from the October deadline she said, stating that a record number of pupils from Polar Quintile 1 (the least advantaged) made applications to the courses and institutions covered by the October deadline (i.e. medicine, dentistry, veterinary and Oxbridge). She also touched on changes being made for the 2024 cycle, including to process of submitting references.
In terms of slightly longer-term trends, Jo stated that the growth in demand for higher education seen since 2014 would continue over the coming years, both domestically and internationally. The largest area of growth, geographically, could be seen in London and in subjects such as computing, technology and healthcare course-wise.
She also touched on the huge increase in the number of students declaring a mental health concern or condition. She acknowledged the huge pressure this placed on university wellbeing services, particularly when it came to students that were less likely to declare a condition in advance, such as medical students.
Following on from the point made by the previous speakers, Jo spoke about the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on applications stating that of over one million individuals registering with UCAS every year almost half had expressed a concern about this. She then turned to the implications of having more students in paid employment (and for longer hours) on how courses were run.
John Gill focused much of his presentation on the financial sustainability of universities and particularly a recent Times Higher Education (THE) survey of vice-chancellors which found that around half of university leaders expected their university to be in deficit this year. He referenced the impact of the real terms reduction in the value of tuition fees and mentioned several institutions that were under considerable financial strain despite good management and a business model that was in line with government priorities.
He referenced the PwC analysis of universities’ finances, noting the major impact that a sustained reduction in international students would have. Negative rhetoric on international students did cut through, he thought, referencing strong readership of THE articles about migration policies from target countries such as India and Nigeria.
John thought it was positive that mainstream media were now reporting on the difficult financial situation facing universities, and that it was important for the public to understand higher education was not the beneficiary of a generous system.
Looking further ahead, he spoke about potential reforms to the higher education finance system, including tweaks to the current model, diversifying who pays for higher education (i.e. employers sharing the cost) and reintroducing student number caps. He noted that whoever formed the next government, it was unlikely that huge reforms would be introduced at any speed.