A new report, authored by Higher Education Policy Institute president Bahram Bekhradnia, argues that a reduction in student demand for higher education in England and a decrease in the 18-year-old population after 2030 is likely to result in a “very bleak outlook for many universities.” The report also suggests that previous estimates by UCAS of 350,000 more students by 2035 may now be too high.
Key findings include:
- The growth in England’s 18-year-old population since 2020 has not translated into significant increases in student numbers.
- The number of applications from 18-year-olds declined in 2023 and 2024 after a decade of steady increases. According to Bekhradnia, it is too early to tell whether the drop in applications is just a ‘blip’ or the beginning of a trend.
- England’s 18-year-old population is projected to decline by 7% between 2030 and 2035 and by a further 12% between 2035 and 2040. According to Bekhradnia, if there are no changes in the current participation rate, applications from those leaving high school should rise by about 8 %, or 25,000, between 2024 and 2030, but then fall by 20,000 or 7% between 2030 and 2035, leaving only a small net rise over the next decade.
The HEPI report suggests several reasons for the declining demand: cost, declines in school attainment, the state of the economy, the impact of the pandemic and the “hostile environment” created by the former government. Bekhradnia argues that there is a need to control the number of students that can be recruited by individual universities to ‘reduce the damage that is being done to the sector’.
However, in response to the new HEPI analysis, John Cope, former Executive Director of UCAS, argues that a decline in numbers is not inevitable. Cope suggests that adult learners are increasingly likely to become the norm as AI changes workplaces. According to Cope, current initiatives around apprenticeships, innovations around the Lifelong Learning Entitlement and a greater focus on open learning mean that universities will increasingly attract new learner cohorts, countering any loss in home undergraduates. Others in the sector suggest that the drop in applications is likely to be partly due to the normalisation of numbers after an uplift during COVID and echo Cope’s assessment that the new Lifelong Learning Entitlement will help universities attract new learner cohorts.
From an accommodation perspective, given that adult learners are less likely to live in purpose-built student accommodation, retention of existing students is likely to be increasingly important.
