What's Happening with Student Numbers? Insights for the 2024/2025 Academic Year

Thank you for attending this event - What's Happening with Student Numbers? Insights for the 2024/2025 Academic Year

The slides presented can be downloaded below:

Matt Durnin, Nous Group

Victoria Tolmie-Loverseed, Unipol Student Homes 

This Unipol Training webinar took place on 16th August 2024.

UK Students

Victoria Tolmie-Loverseed, Unipol looked at the UCAS data up to the 30 June deadline, digging below the headline. The main takeaways were:

What is happening to overall student numbers?

  • In 2024 – 2025 total acceptances to UK universities through UCAS up to the 30 June deadline including internationals are up 2.6% on 2023 and the second highest level across the past decade. Applications are down 1.6% on last year.
  • This is being driven by universities taking a more flexible approach to admissions, hoping to shore up numbers as international numbers are expected to decline.

What about home (UK) student numbers?

  • Applications from domestic students are down. A covid bump is now working the way out of the system and looking back over the last decade, applications from UK students are down 5.8% to 521,300 applicants in 2024.
  • Acceptances have increased this year by 3%, and 4.5% across the decade.
  • 9% of students were accepted, the highest rate in a decade.

Are demographic factors having an influence? School leavers

  • The demographic increase in 18 year olds in the UK population will peak in 2030
  • The proportion of 18 year olds who made an application this to university has dropped this year to 41.9%, after a decline in 2023 from its peak at 44.1% in 2022
  • If demand in the international market does not recover, reliance on home undergraduate numbers will become unsustainable after 2030 if demographic numbers are borne out.
  • This represents a critical threat to parts of the sector if the funding regime is not changed. It may also present challenges for accommodation demand.

Regional variations?

  • Looking at home students, there is variability and change in applicant numbers trends by regions over time
  • Since 2015, London is the only region to have consistently grown its applicants each year. Over the same time frame, Northern Ireland, the North East, South West and Wales have all had declines of over 10%.
  • There appears to be something approaching a north-south divide in the applicant figures
  • Growing regional disparity could accelerate changes in student numbers

International Students

Matt Durnin, Principal consultant at Nous looked at factors impacting international demand.

How does the UK rank in the top 4 study destinations for international students?

  • International HE enrolment across the top 4 destinations (UK, USA, Australia and Canada) has grown steadily since the 2000’s, with annual growth of around 60,000
  • During and since the pandemic the UK has become comparatively more attractive and increased its market share of the internal market, overtaking the USA in 2021 to 35% share of degree-level and above international enrolments
  • This can in part be attributed to tightening student visa policies in Australia and Canada
  • The USA has a much lower internalisation relative to the UK and has plenty of room to grow, and demographic factors in the US make this more possible

Will the preferences of Chinese students change?

  • The relative prestige of universities in the big four destinations is being challenged by the growth of domestic HE alternatives within China, with the quantum of universities and their QS rankings increasing in recent years
  • The pandemic shifted preferences from Chinese students closer to home, with growth in Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, but there are signs that preferences are shifting back to pre-pandemic norms, with the UK still seen as the number one destination by many Chinese school leavers
  • There is the potential for additional growth from Chinese students from inland areas of the country, where household incomes are typically lower than previous cohorts, which may impact on choice of study destination and institution, with lower cost options potentially becoming more attractive

Will there be growth from other sending countries to replacing stalling demand from China?

  • International student mobility if factored by household income levels. Looking at the top four sending countries (China, India, Indonesia and Nigeria), incomes drop off sharply after China and India, suggesting much less capacity to send students abroad to study
  • The Indian economy is growing and this in turn is likely to see more students studying abroad, this growth is steady so rapid future growth is unlikely

What impact might the riots have had on the attractiveness of UK universities to international students?

  • Historically, Chinese students appear to be unperturbed by these types of civil disturbances
  • For Indian students, there is some precedent for civil or criminal issues being more of a determining factor, and this could be seen in Australia after some attacks on Indian students in 2009 dragged down applications for a sustained period

What are international applications looking like to the UK currently?

  • In the postgraduate sector, data from Enroly suggests they are likely to be down by over 50% compared to 2023, but this is relative to the pandemic and post-pandemic high water mark
  • International numbers at UK universities are likely to return to a pre-pandemic norm over the next couple of cycles
  • Overall there are is still strong demand for international education, the UK has a highly valued offer and clear identity that

Speakers Featured

Matt Durnin, Principal, Nous Group

Matt specialises in higher education strategy and internationalisation. He has played a role in establishing more than 30 academic and research partnerships across 15 countries and helped dozens of universities improve student recruitment and form or revise their international strategies.

Matt has 13 years of consulting and research experience in China and speaks Mandarin. His writings have been published by the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the Journal of Strategic Studies, the BBC and Times Higher Education, among others.

Victoria Tolmie-Loverseed
Assistant Chief Executive - Standards, Unipol Student Homes

Victoria Tolmie-Loverseed has worked in housing and HE since 2004, including student accommodation, the private rented sector and social housing. She works closely with HEIs’, Local Authorities, Governments and major suppliers to raise standards and address student needs through her work leading Unipol’s accreditation and research area. She is also a non-executive director of a housing association with a keen interest in customer support and engagement.