The paper, written by HEPI founder and president Bahram Bekhradnia, looks at young, full-time undergraduate demand for higher education (HE) in England. It explores how it may be changing, the factors that could influence future demand and the implications for students, institutions and society more generally.
The full report can be found here.
At-a-glance:
- After steadily increasing over the past two decades, the student participation rate in England has gone into reverse in the past two years. UCAS data shows that the number of 18-year-old applicants, as a percentage of the 18-year-old population, shows decline in 2023 and 2024. This could mean that student number projections may be too high (p4)
- After increasing between now and 2030, the size of the 18-year-old population will decline by 17 per cent up to 2040. Unless the participation rate were to resume its upward trajectory, overall demand for higher education would fall between 2030 and 2040, causing serious problems for universities and colleges (p4)
- There remains a “yawning gap” between male and female participation. Given that consistently 5 per cent more boys are born than girls, it would take a 37 per cent increase in male participation to match that of female (p12)
- A narrowing of the gap in participation between male and female students could bring about a large increase in demand. However, such a narrowing cannot be confidently anticipated; a similar gap is observed in the Level 3 achievements of male and female school pupils, which has stayed stubbornly unchanged over the years. The gap in performance has also never received sustained focus from the Department for Education (p11)
- Twenty years ago young people from the most privileged groups were four times more likely to go to university than the least privileged – that gap had halved by 2022. However, in the last two years that steady improvement has stalled (p13)
- If the improvement in the performance of the least privileged were to get back on track, their participation could substantially mitigate the effect of the population decline (p13)
- Since 2012, participation has risen despite higher fees, but tuition fees are only one element of the cost of attending university. Maintenance support has not kept up with the rising cost of living, which may be having a negative impact on demand from students (p7)
- Universities have been operating in a “hostile environment” (and are often embroiled in “culture wars”), with claims of “rip off degrees” by government ministers seized on by much of the media. The language and hostility might have created an atmosphere where potential students who might otherwise have gone to university – and their parents – become sceptical about the value of doing so (p9)
- This narrative risks being reinforced by Office for Students accountability measures which focus on graduate drop-out rates and salaries, with scant reference to the lifelong benefits – not just pecuniary but non-financial – of attending university, for which there is extensive international evidence (p9)
- Despite the steady growth in participation in England over recent years, participation remains well behind a number of other Western countries. There are disparities even within the UK. For example applicants to UCAS from England represented 42 per cent of the young English population whereas from Northern Ireland they represented 50 per cent of Northern Irish 18-year-olds (p10)
- Many universities are already suffering student number reductions, partly as a result of “higher tariff” universities recruiting students who in the past would not have met their academic requirements and would have gone to “lower” or “medium tariff” universities. Between 2013 and 2024, applications to “higher tariff” universities increased by 40 per cent while those to “lower tariff” universities declined by 13 per cent (p15)
- Increasing numbers of universities are in financial difficulty. To reduce the damage being done to the sector as a whole, there is an urgent national interest argument for controlling the number of students that can be recruited by individual universities, unfortunate though such a measure may be (p16)
Implications for governance:
While the reliability of forecasts for a ten year period cannot be guaranteed, the HEPI paper provides food for thought for governors on challenges facing the sector in light of recent changes in the sector and society affecting student demand for higher education.
The reversal over the recent past year of the otherwise steady increase in the demand for HE among young people in England is largely unprecedented in the past three decades.
According to the HEPI paper, the external environment has changed substantially from 2018, when the sector was able to make assumptions about the continuing desire of young people to go to university and project with reasonable confidence the trajectory of student demand.
It is too early to say whether the increasing participation that has been seen over the last generation has halted, or the recent fall proves to be a temporary blip – perhaps part of a rebalancing after the Covid-related surge in demand in 2021 and 2022. If the participation rate remains at its present level between 2030 and 2040, when the number of 18-year-olds is falling by an estimated 17 per cent, the consequences for governing boards and their universities will be serious, the paper suggests.
Mitigations could come in the form of increased participation among young men and teenagers from disadvantaged backgrounds, groups who have lower participation rates currently, the author says.
A narrowing of the gap in participation between male and female students could bring about a large increase in demand: but boys attainment needs to improve. As the same issue of male underachievement is evident across most countries in the OECD, and little has been done by the Department of Education here to focus on this group, the paper is not optimistic that much will change.
Pupils from less affluent backgrounds have been a policy priority, however. Certainly, universities are working hard through their outreach to help schools to raise attainment at GCSE and beyond, with some widening participation schemes targeting teenage boys in particular. In light of the HEPI paper’s findings, it may be that this work is vital not only to fairness and equity but to bolstering student demand more generally.
Arguments that demand for HE has reached a natural plateau are contradicted by the higher participation rates seen in some other Western countries, says the report.
The author points out that the relationship between the young population and higher education demand is not linear. The number of 18-year-olds going to university increased steadily over the years of the declining 18-year-old population between 2010 and 2020, independent of the changes in that population. In part this was because institutions were creative in stimulating additional demand.
However, the ability of many institutions to do this currently, through more extensive WP programmes or developing new courses for instance, is likely to be hampered by the financial crisis across much of the sector.
Some of the factors that might be influencing demand are beyond the control of universities. The cost-of-living crisis and the failure of maintenance loans to keep pace could be having a dampening effect.
Meanwhile the “rip-off courses” narrative of some politicians, which has been calling into question the value of going to university, is one that Labour has made clear it does not support. Universities too have a role to play in making the case for the wider personal and societal benefits of gaining a degree. Governors may wish to consider what more their own institution could be doing on this front.
While governors may not agree with some of the bleaker prospects for HE suggested in the paper, or with some of the more radical suggested solutions such as student numbers controls, they may nevertheless wish to take into careful consideration the risks facing the sector if demand for places continues to weaken.
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