The famous Russell University Group says institutions are losing £ 1,750 a year teaching each student at home because tuition has remained almost static for 10 years and is not keeping pace with inflation. On average, universities will lose 000 4,000 a year from every undergraduate degree in the UK by 2024, the team says. Experts say some may end up withdrawing from teaching students in the UK, focusing exclusively on international students and postgraduates. The government has raised the tuition ceiling to 9 9,000 per year in 2012 and has been set at .2 9,250 since 2017. Ministers are widely seen to be wary of discussing this politically toxic issue in the run-up to the next general election and have already confirmed that tuition fees will remain frozen at least until the academic year 2024-25. But university officials say the current funding system “just doesn’t work” and the government needs to think about how to adequately support them, either by offering additional funding for teaching or by reviewing the way higher education is paid. Professor Steve West, chairman of the Vice Chancellors’ Group at Universities UK, says: “If nothing changes, universities need to look at what they can reduce. They may be forced to say, “We need bigger lessons and less staff.” “This is not a place you want to go, but there may be no choice.” West, who is vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England in Bristol, adds: “Education is very important to be political football. “Clearly it is not the time to raise tuition, but the government can not just avoid talking about how to fund universities.” Many universities, especially in the most selective part of the industry, are already choosing to increase the number of their international and postgraduate students, whose tuition is not limited by the government. Professor Colin Riordan, head of the University of Cardiff and a member of the Russell Group, says that if universities start to incur greater losses in their teaching, “they should start reducing the number of home students they receive.” They are likely to cut positions in the UK on nationally important issues such as science, engineering and technology because they cost more to teach, he says. The University of Northampton says it is proud to take a large percentage of UK students from challenging backgrounds – but that their teaching is expensive. Photo: John Robertson / The Guardian “I think the government has a national duty to ensure that it is at least viable for us to teach students from this country.” Riordan says he sees no sign that the government is recognizing the unfolding “crisis” and fears that ministers will simply tell the institutions to resolve it themselves. “The government has to be accountable for the financial framework it has put in place, which just doesn’t work,” he says. Mark Corver, co-founder of dataHE, a consulting firm that advises universities on their admissions, says that “some universities may more or less withdraw” from offering full-time undergraduate degrees to UK students. He predicts that those graduating from the UK will find out this summer that it is already more difficult to get into university. “We have seen with the energy market that if you do not let the price caps reflect the cost of providing the service, eventually suppliers will simply close their stores,” he says. “This year’s graduates have the strongest GCSEs of any cohort ever, so they will expect to go to the university usually offered by these high scores,” he adds. “But it is not clear that the job offer will be there.” Corver says that if the CPI increases by three points later this year, as suggested by the Bank of England, the RPI is also likely to rise from 12% now to around 15%, which means that by September the current tuition fees of The .2 9,250 will only be worth around 6. 6,350 at 2012 prices. This is a reduction of almost a third compared to the 9 9,000 τέλος end introduced by the government at the time. “We have probably the best university sector in the world, which is publicly subsidized, but it is financially better for them to teach and upgrade young people from competing countries. It’s a strange situation. “ Professor Nick Petford, vice-chancellor of the University of Northampton, said: “This is not a particular complaint, it is a harsh economic reality and a cut in real terms. If it happened in the NHS, there would be, quite rightly, politicians in all this. “ Petford says his university prides itself on accepting a large percentage of students from difficult backgrounds, many of whom have free school meals at school, but that their support to succeed is expensive. “This is the classic level upgrade and we have deliberately moved away from the tradition of overproduction style with 300-seat lecture halls and left for smaller class sizes to support these students,” he says. “But high-quality face-to-face teaching is expensive.” He added: “If the unit of resources continues to shrink, this will become unsustainable.” Subscribe to the First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7 p.m. BST Nick Hillman, director of the think tank of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, says the biggest risk with underfunding is not that many universities will go to the wall, but that institutions will not be able to offer their students the experience they expect. “I went to university in 1990 after a dozen years of declining funding per student and the result was an impersonal learning experience that many people simply would not accept today.” He argues that staff should teach and support many more students, so they will resort to less work to manage their grading and will avoid commenting because it takes too much time. University buildings and facilities will be demolished and “made rough” without investment, he says. Hillman says he visited a university earlier this month during an open day when his parents were “telling the facility”. “This is one reason why the government cannot allow things to go back to the old days,” he said. “Parents also have high expectations.” A spokesman for the Ministry of Education said: “The government is supporting our out-of-the-world universities with an additional 750 750 million in funding over the next three years. We increase the grant rate for students in laboratory healthcare and Stem in real terms and increase funding for universities to provide high-cost courses to 17 817 million. “The student funding system must be fair to students, universities and taxpayers and it is right to freeze tuition fees to reduce the debt burden on graduates. “We expect every university to provide good quality face-to-face teaching – what students want and deserve.”
