How I was right and wrong – an update on my predictions for higher education in 2019
At the beginning of this year, I wrote a blog with 9 predictions for UK higher education in 2019. It was really fun to put my thoughts to paper and spark some discussions with colleagues and connections across the sector.
Now that we’re way over half way through the year (where has it gone!?), I thought it’d be good to reflect on how things have progressed, where I was right and where I was wrong.
1. Unis are going to step up and do more to support students with BTECs.
In short, it’s really hard to tell on this one. Whilst some universities may have started to do more in this area, we’ll need to wait longer to be able to measure if there has been any change in the attainment or retention gap for students who enter with BTECs. As stated in this Wonkhe article by Arthi Nachiappan and David Kernohan, “[w]hat students come in with is a huge predicting factor of their course outcomes.” I still think that it’s really important that we do more as a sector in this area.
2. The fees review will NOT lead to a decrease in tuition fees.
The Augar review was published and it did recommend, among other things, a decrease in the headline tuition fee from ￡9,250 to ￡7,500. However, with Jo Johnson resuming his role as England’s universities and science minister, it seems very unlikely that very much from Augar will be implemented. Johnson was strongly against the idea of a tuition fee cut and the funding review in general. With Brexit having been delayed, it also seems unlikely that anything else will be the Government's focus in the remaining five months of 2019.
3. More universities will reveal plans for 2-year degrees.
This prediction seemed promising at the start of 2019. In January, the House of Lords passed a bill with the aim of expanding two-year degree courses by allowing universities to charge higher tuition fees (￡11,000) for each year of study. However, it’s clearly going to take time for this change to be realised in the offering of universities. A check of the international student website ‘Studyin-UK’ shows that they haven’t added any more universities to their list of those that offer two-year degrees.
4. Impact of Brexit on international student numbers – they’ll go up.
So far, this looks very likely to be true. In a report from UCAS, the number of EU applicants has so far risen by 1% and non-EU international applications has increased by 8%. This is partly due to the large increase in applications from Chinese students, thought to be caused by worsening tensions between the US and China. Many international students don’t apply through UCAS, so we will have to wait and see final figures later this year.
5. Many universities are going to cut staff places and at least another will need to be bailed out.
An area where I was hoping to be wrong, but unfortunately was right (at least partly). There have been many more stories over the last year about universities who have cut staff places and made offers of redundancy. These include Anglia Ruskin University, University of Winchester, University of Portsmouth and Surrey University, which offered redundancy to all of its staff in March this year as part of a cost-saving exercise. So far, to my knowledge we have not seen a university need to be bailed out. However, we have recently seen the closure of private higher education college, GSM London - a real tragedy for the students and staff who were studying and working there.
6. Universities will announce the closure of international campuses that had been opened in previous years.
Whilst there have been some closures of international campuses this year, there have also been some new ones that will open. Lancaster University's own German outpost, in Leipzig, is due to open in September, as will Coventry University's campus in Wroc?aw, Poland, which was announced last year. However, the University of Aberdeen has discarded its plan to establish a new campus in South Korea.
There is a superb and in-depth piece on the THE website from Ellie Bothwell, which discusses this topic more widely and in more detail – I thoroughly recommend it for anyone interested in the topic of Transnational Education (TNE).
7. New VCs will be paid less than their predecessors, but existing university leaders will continue to see salary increases.
A number of resignations from UK vice-chancellors have tricked through in 2019 so far. Whilst in most cases their replacements are yet to take up post, I did look into the case of the University of Southampton that I referenced in my original post. The retiring VC, Sir Christopher Snowden, was one of the highest paid vice-chancellors in the UK, earning over ￡430,000 in 2016/17. Southampton have announced that his replacement, Mark Smith, will earn ￡287,000 a year – a substantial difference. I’d be interested if anyone else is able to find similar figures from other universities.
8. We will see a further year of decreasing scores in the National Student Survey.
Very happy to be wrong on this one. After two years of decreasing satisfaction scores across the sector, 2019 brought an overall small improvement in satisfaction from 83% to 84%. An interesting note is that we also have had a second year of higher scores around value for money in the annual Student Academic Experience Survey, which I wrote about in June. Are the two related? Possibly, although the surveys have overlapping yet different audiences, so we shouldn’t draw too many comparisons between results.
9. Numbers of unconditional offers will continue to increase.
Perhaps this was unsurprising, but yes, unconditional offers did continue to increase. 38% of applicants received an offer with an unconditional component this year (up from 34% last year). The continued rise in usage has been jumped on by OfS and universities minister, Jo Johnson, as an area that could result in fines if left unabated.
Most importantly – have you spotted any more examples of cheesy student photoshoots!? If so, please send me the details. Hope that your 2019s are all going well.