With the rate of inflation on the rise again, fees paid by students don’t seem to be meeting the needs of university institutions. Mark Corver, Founder and Managing Director at dataHE, says that the prices are up again this March, “The current £9,250 FT UG fee cap now worth only £5,714 in 2012 pounds.”
Whilst the initiative to increase student fees has already been announced, with UCAS stating that fees will increase from £9,250 to £9,535, there are concerns that this still won’t be enough to support university bodies.
Corver says, “The increase this Autumn still only takes it to £5,867 in 2012 pounds. Both below the legal minimum in 2012 for providing good HE teaching.”
International fees
In 2024, student via applications decreased by 14% as international fees continue to rise. Statistical estimations have been made for dataHE based off the recent HESA report from Times Higher Education .
Corver reports, “higher tariff providers charging over £32,000 for the first time this year.”
He explains that, “This means they now have a record £69,000 financial incentive for choosing an international student over their UK peer for a UG degree programme this August.”
Despite this incentive, international students like Giorgia Caso say they were dissuaded from choosing to continue their studies via Post Graduate schemes.
She said, “It would cost me more than £17,000 in course fees for an extra year of education and that just wasn’t affordable. So, I decided doing a master’s degree right now wasn’t an option for me.”
Higher tariff providers
The large fees translate into international students having to pay a greater
share for the same education.
Corver says this means, “the teaching there is nominally better resourced than at lower tariff peers. The averaged fees imply UK students at lower tariff providers can expect to see roughly £5k/year less spent on them than their friends at higher tariff providers, even though they all pay the same UK fee.”
Despite students from overseas paying more for higher tariff universities, Corver says “The amount of real funding per student at higher tariff providers now is below the unit of resource which students at lower tariff providers enjoyed in 2012.”
It all leads back to inflation and fees
Overall, whilst fees being paid to the students seem to increase, a
distorted image is being produced which makes students and the public
believe that universities are receiving more money to put into the
education system. Instead, inflation shows that just over 10 years ago,
universities were receiving more despite tuition fees being higher now.
Corver says, “Most of what is going on in the university sector: PGT prioritisation, international growth and commissions, franchising, staff redundancies, falling young demand, and increasing inequality in entry rates can be tied back to this.”
