Thousands of jobs at risk in UK universities amid drop in international student enrolment

CARDIFF: For more than 140 years, Cardiff University in the United Kingdom has taught some of the brightest students from around the world, including multiple heads of state and Nobel Prize winners.

But the prominent Welsh institution is now among over 80 universities in Britain that are currently restructuring or looking to reduce staff numbers.

Last month, it announced plans to cut 400 full-time jobs – about 7 per cent of all its roles – and close several courses like ancient history, nursing, music, and modern languages and translation.

A consultation on the proposed changes will run for 90 days, with final plans for approval to be considered in June.

This comes as universities in the UK have been facing a funding crisis, with many struggling with rising costs amid a dramatic fall in the number of high fee-paying international students choosing to study there.

Some university heads have warned that 10,000 jobs could be lost in higher education in the UK.

INTERNATIONAL, DOMESTIC ISSUES

According to the government’s most recent figures, a quarter of the total UK student population in 2023 were from overseas - just over 750,000. More than 100,000 students came from India and China.

But early data showed that this academic year from September 2024 to August this year, study visas have fallen by more than 30 per cent. Postgraduate enrolment is also down by 40 per cent.

Critics blame falling international student numbers on anti-immigration government rhetoric and new visa restrictions introduced in January last year, which limit foreign students' right to work and the visas on offer to their relatives.

Domestic issues have also plagued university funding.

Despite surging inflation and costs for institutions, tuition fees in the UK have been frozen since 2017 at US$11,500 per academic year for most students.

While fees will rise by 3 per cent in the next academic year in September, average prices have gone up by 30 per cent since 2017.

This has led some academics, like public economics professor Nicholas Barr from the London School of Economics, to call the present system “unsustainable”.

“There has to be some more direct taxpayer support for teaching to go back to the old arrangement, where teaching was financed through a mix of tuition fees and taxpayer support,” he told CNA.

“If universities are consistently under-financed, then it’s true that some might go to the wall, but … a bigger problem is, the quality of what we offer our students will decline.”

“PRECARIOUS FINANCIAL POSITION”

At Cardiff University, job cuts and course closures are expected to be accompanied by department mergers.

It is currently reporting a £31 million (US$38 million) operational deficit for this academic year.

With income down and expenditure up, among the university’s proposals is the closure of the School of Nursing, which sparked two protests within a week involving more than 100 staff, lecturers and supporters.

Students said they were shocked to hear the news and expressed worries about the wider impact it will have.

Nico Campbell, a student nurse at the university, noted the need for the university to be financially viable as a business.

“However, as a business within this community they have got a civic duty to the community of Cardiff and to the wider community of Wales. It cannot be overstated how devastating these cuts are going to be,” Campbell added.

In a statement, the university’s senior management said the “precarious financial position” of many UK universities is “well documented”.

They specifically highlighted the “declining” number of “international student applications and increasing cost pressures”, adding that they simply cannot go on “as they are”.

Andy Williams, media spokesperson of the Cardiff University and College Union, noted that the proposed job and course cuts hinge on the university’s self-imposed plan to make a 12 per cent surplus year-on-year.

“Now, that would be reasonable if they were a business that needed to pay out money to shareholders, or even reasonable if they were a university with small or non-existent reserves - but Cardiff University has huge reserves,” he added.

“We need a smaller, more drawn-out recovery, drawing on a small amount of those rainy-day reserves.”

Still, the university has insisted that immediate savings have to be made.

Meanwhile, the UK government said it believes an increase in tuition fees will help institutions, but many universities say that does not go far enough.

With no indication that more public money will be made available, funding questions remain about the long-term future of higher education in the UK.