A famine-or-famine admissions round that threatens to bankrupt some universities has reignited calls for the reintroduction of student number controls (SNCs) in England, with the new Labour government coming under pressure from both sides of the political spectrum to act.
Faced with declining numbers of foreign students, higher-rate institutions have turned to the domestic market on a large scale, attracting a level of 18-year-old applicants last seen in the Covid-affected years, when undergraduate student numbers increased based on teacher-assessed grades.
The Russell Group – which represents many of the universities with higher fees – says its members are well prepared for the increased demand. But critics fear a return to large class sizes and accommodation shortages, as was the case during the pandemic.
The knock-on effects on lower-fee universities are also a cause for concern. The missed recruitment targets are all the more serious as the sector is currently in the grip of the financial crisis.
Balihar Sanghera, head of the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent – one of the institutions most affected by the extension of tariffs – said the anger and frustration at the situation was “palpable”. “There is a feeling that things cannot go on like this,” he added.
Kent has already been forced to take drastic measures to tackle a £12 million deficit caused in part by a lack of recruitment. Dr Sanghera said individual universities could not be expected to solve the problems through restructuring, but rather a “collective, structural solution” was needed.
He said the reintroduction of recruitment caps, similar to those abolished by the Conservative government in 2015, should be part of a package of measures to restore stability to the system.
“Number of students controls are not a panacea,” he said. “They will not solve all problems. But this year they would have had a significant impact on preventing the Russell Group from taking the lion’s share at the expense of other universities and pushing them into deficit or even deeper into deficit.”
“If overall numbers do not increase sharply and some universities accept more students, it will be at the expense of others. If there are winners, there must be losers. It is a ‘prosper or perish’ ideology.
Since the cap on student numbers was abolished, there have been repeated proposals to reinstate the rule. Most recently, the previous Conservative government proposed limiting the number of students taking “lower quality” courses, but Labour rejected this move at the time.
Nick Hillman, a former special adviser to the Department for Education who was one of the architects of the no minimum wage system, acknowledged that recent developments would reignite the debate.
“They (SNCs) are the beast that never dies,” said Hillman, now director of the Higher Education Policy Institute. “I recognize that some proponents of student caps believe they are acting in the interest of students by trying to reduce turnover in the system, although others seem to be motivated more by staff concerns than student concerns.”
“But the main problem is that the accountants in Whitehall are in favour of capping education spending because it saves them money. But I don’t think people who care about education should be campaigning for higher barriers to entry or less education overall.”
But an unusual coalition disagreed with that view. Jo Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union, which supports capping student numbers, said it would be “neither good for staff nor good for students” if universities were forced to compete with each other, so that some had to house their students miles away while others had to make drastic cuts.
She said institutions need to move away from focusing on short-term student recruitment cycles and plan for the long term.
“However, for this to succeed, Labour must put forward proposals for sustainable management of student numbers at universities across the sector and support this with increased public funding,” said Dr Grady.
Iain Mansfield, a former special adviser to Conservative universities ministers and now education director of the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange, said that “the chaos and frenzy of this year’s admissions cycle shows that volatility is as big a threat to the financial sustainability of universities as absolute unity of resources”.
He asked whether the quality of institutions that are expanding so rapidly will continue to be guaranteed, “or will academic standards and seminar sizes be quietly relaxed?”
“A government determined to reduce the risk of an unplanned provider exit would bring valuable stability to the system by reintroducing the system of student number controls that was in place during the New Labour years,” said Mansfield.
A Russell Group spokesman said its universities would “continue to accept only students who have the ability to succeed in their chosen course and we are committed to providing a high quality education and student experience for all”.