Part One: Navigating the Challenges

The English Higher Education sector is facing some of the greatest challenges in living memory. There are long-standing issues about: the ‘freezing’ of the £9,250 fee which is now worth £6,600 in 2012 prices, which in combination with a reduction in direct government funding, has led to a collapse in funding for English universities; low and declining levels of maintenance support for students, further exacerbated by the current cost of living crisis; and systematic underfunding of the full cost of research. 

More immediately, we are responding to a rapidly changing student recruitment context. Brexit led to a decline of 47% in EU students registered at the University of Essex. The impact of the pandemic on overseas student recruitment has been a once in a generation shock to established patterns of choice for international students. This has had a particular impact on recruitment in China, with student mobility still not back to pre-COVID levels. There is also a new emphasis on world rankings driving decisions for those students seeking to study outside of China, impacting on enrolments across the UK HE sector. 

In addition, as a result of the pandemic, the most selective institutions have increased their recruitment of UK undergraduates to compensate for losses in international markets. The impact of this on applicant behaviour is on-going. In September 2022 44,000 UK applicants did not receive a single offer, including 7,000 applicants with AAAA profiles. This resulted in 2022 becoming only the second year in recent history when the percentage of UK 18-year-olds going to university declined. 

In combination, these challenges have resulted in a very wide variance in the financial position of universities – perhaps the largest gap in living memory. This matters because it shapes the ability of individual universities to invest in their academic mission, to support students and advance research. It has also created significant differentiation in the ability of universities to pay, reward, recruit and retain staff, affecting the health of the university sector ecosystem as whole. 

At Essex, we have navigated these challenges in a number of ways. Our focus on growing the university to secure the financial sustainability of our departments and disciplines meant that we went into the pandemic on a sound financial footing. Throughout the pandemic, and over the last 12 months, we have had a clear-eyed view of opportunities – which we have seized through a combination of innovation and agility, and careful stewardship of financial resources. We have prioritised reaching into new markets, developing and enhancing our portfolio of courses, adapting our teaching facilities to changing patterns of demand, and making the campus experience as positive as we can for staff and students. 

In addition to the decline in EU students, in 2022-23 we had 14% fewer UK students than in 2020-21. The impacts of these changes have been uneven across departments and disciplines. However, we have been able to compensate for the decline in UK students through growth in international student numbers at UG and PGT levels, the introduction of January starts and the development of new courses.

This has not been without its challenges. Whilst absolute numbers at our Colchester Campus have declined from 14,308 to 13,948 FTE, the shape of our student population has changed, with growth concentrated in larger cohorts of PGT students, some with very specialist teaching facility needs. The introduction of January starts, which has been critical in sustaining our student numbers and our financial stability, has brought significant new challenges and pressure points. These include our need to ensure that we are making efficient use of teaching spaces through careful management of the timetable, implications for staff who are leading work to deliver agile innovation, and changes to the rhythm of the academic year. It has also required us to rapidly reprioritise our capital programme and investment in facilities to ensure we can continue to recruit students where there is demand. However, taking a whole university ecosystem approach to create the capacity for growth in areas of high demand, has allowed us to care for and protect subject areas where – at the moment – student recruitment is weak. 

As the impacts of these challenges unfold across the sector, we want to say thank you for your contributions to the University’s mission, to innovation and adaptation, and for your support for students and staff. This has not been an easy year and your commitment to the success of the University is much appreciated. We are in no doubt that our ability to be agile and to adapt to this series of disruptions to UK HE has been absolutely critical to keeping the University on a sound financial footing, and key to helping us avoid painful choices being faced by some other universities. Whilst the external environment is extremely challenging, there can’t be a better group of colleagues to work with in navigating these challenges and we remain optimistic about the future. Thank you.

‘Navigating the Challenges’ is Part One of a two part blog. The second part is ‘Charting our Path.’