If you ask any UK Vice Chancellor what’s keeping them awake at night, it’s highly likely to be the financial sustainability of their institution and the wider sector. Years of frozen funding coupled with rising costs are inevitably taking their toll across all four nations. University leaders are also increasingly worried about the impact the cost-of-living crisis is having on students – both current and prospective. The 2023-24 admissions cycle has seen the entry rate for the most under-represented students fall by a record margin.
One (small) silver lining is that the sector’s concerns are finally beginning to be taken seriously by some politicians and financial commentators. They are also attracting attention overseas – adding to the growing interest and pressure at home. After a detailed inquiry into higher education regulation in England, the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee concluded that both the Government and the Office for Students (OfS) are failing to act on the “looming financial crisis” facing the sector. It also seriously questioned the OfS’ approach to regulation and whether it provides value for money.
It will therefore come as little surprise that University Alliance is calling on the next government to urgently address financial shortfalls for students and universities in our new policy briefing, Let’s Get Technical: How to Harness the Power of Professional and Technical Universities to Deliver for the UK. We know we will not be alone in making this ask of political parties in the run-up to the general election, and note our shared recommendations with Universities UK (UUK) to reinstate maintenance grants for those who need them most and restore the unit of resource to the equivalent of 2015/16 levels as soon as practically possible. The Lords report called on the Government to “review how higher education is funded, setting long-term, sustainable funding and delivery models for the sector”. Although we acknowledge this is politically difficult, it cannot happen soon enough.
