A recent report highlighted that a large part of the UK Higher Education sector had seen a decline in enrolments from both India and Nigeria in their September 2023 intakes. The news prompted a swathe of internal reviews amongst universities, keen to understand such unexpected shifts. It is now important to establish whether this change marks the beginning of a long-term trend for the sector, or whether it is more of a minor blip in institutional recruitment strategies, especially when set in the context of the huge growth from Nigeria in recent years, with Nigerian study visas issued by the Home Office rising from 6,798 (2017) to 59,053 (2022).
Using data from a sample of over 16,000 offer holders of QS’ partner institutions for the January 2024 intake, as well as web traffic data from our student-facing website topuniversities.com, we can illustrate a more mixed picture for the year ahead.
Across the whole dataset, there has been a considerable fall in the number of Nigerian offer-holders, a drop of 40.5% (declining from 4,405 in Jan 2023 to 2,619 in Jan 2024). Such shifts appear to echo the findings from Enroly in September and would suggest that the volatility of the Nigerian market is here to stay. There are a number of factors driving these changes – the cap on dependent family members visas in the UK, fluctuations in the Nigerian currency and a more competitive in-market, recruitment landscape—(According to Open Doors data there was a 12% uplift in Nigerian students going to the US to study in 2022)—all no doubt played their part in creating a perfect storm for UK universities and their recruitment strategies.
