UK university financial crisis ‘failing to register with public’

Less than one person in three thinks UK universities are short of money, and less than a quarter believe higher education institutions should be allowed to raise tuition fees to solve their funding challenges, according to new polling.

Asked whether most British universities had enough money, only 32 per cent of the 4,034 people polled by Public First said they had too little money, of which only 8 per cent felt institutions were in serious financial difficulty.

Some 31 per cent said universities have “about the right amount of money”, while 22 per cent said they have too much money, of which 7 per cent claimed that they have “much too much money”, according to a report by the political consultancy firm that was commissioned by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Universities.

The findings, published on 18 December, highlight the uphill challenge that universities face in winning greater public support for much more funding at a time when many institutions are making redundancies in response to worsening finances, which many link to a steep decline in international student recruitment since the introduction of visa restrictions on family members of postgraduate taught students and longstanding freezes in teaching funding.

Source: 

Public First: University APPG report December 2024

Quizzed about how universities might boost their funding, only 24 per cent felt the government should remove the cap that exists to prevent universities from raising fees – a limit that will increase to £9,535 for domestic students in the 2025-26 academic year, up from its present rate of £9,250.

More people felt universities should increase their international student enrolments (34 per cent), offer more places to domestic students (32 per cent) or find savings from their own budgets (31 per cent). Twenty-nine per cent felt universities should be given more money from general taxation.

According to the report, which drew on polling conducted in late November, the apparent appetite for increasing international student enrolments indicates that “people were open to universities taking a range of options to raise more money to keep paying staff” – a position that might have been influenced by the “recent debate on immigration and how it relates to international students”.

On the question of how universities should be funded, the Public First polling suggests that the current model (a mix of government funding and repayable loans from graduates) is more popular than abolishing tuition fees and having universities funded solely by taxpayers: 29 per cent support the present model and 18 per cent the fee-free model.

Source: 

Public First: University APPG report December 2024

However, the report highlights what it calls a “lack of knowledge” about university life, given that 10 per cent of respondents said students should pay their tuition fees and living costs while they study.

According to the report, 60 per cent thought students have the time to take on paid work during term time – a figure that fell to 50 per cent for 18- to 24-year-olds.

“Extraordinarily, of those that said students had the time to do paid work, two-thirds thought that students could work at least 2 days a week,” it says.

There is a similar ignorance about institutional funding, adds the report, which explains that its polling indicates “how little people know about the scale of funding within the sector and how universities are actually funded”. The public’s limited view, the report continues, is likely “driven in part by a tendency of media coverage about university funding to focus only on domestic tuition fees, rather than the wider funding system as a whole”.

Nonetheless, the polling also indicates that the vast majority of parents want their children to attend university, with 81 per cent of those with children under the age of 18 expressing such a desire.

That rose to 92 per cent for parents living in cities, while only 4 per cent did not want their children to enter higher education.

Adam Thompson, MP for Erewash and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Universities, said the “polling shows that the public believe there is a significant role for universities providing the skills and research capabilities to enable the country to thrive in the future”.

“However, universities are facing serious financial challenges and need sustainable support to enable them to fulfil their potential as powerhouses of future economic growth and opportunity,” he added.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com