New data from HESA shows us that the number of students in the UK higher education system has fallen by one per cent year on year, with the majority of this decrease centred around international postgraduate taught students (down ten per cent).
Given the policy direction over the past few years – the end of dependant visas for the families of PGTs, the less public increase in the difficulty of actually attaining a visa – the fact that these numbers have stayed as robust as they have is perhaps cause for celebration.
I’m sure ministers who have just signed off on plans to bring more international fee income to the UK (the international strategy) and to the Treasury (the international fee levy) will be delighted.
Who and where?
The release of HESA Student data for 2024–25 allows us to take a peep at the international recruitment efforts of individual providers in particular countries.
This first version allows you to examine recruitment from a particular country. By default we are looking at India – but you can use the region and country filters to travel the world, and select the mode and level of study.
We can see that BPP University – a prominent recruiter of PGT students from India – saw a year-on-year decline of 1,415 students. Other larger recruiters also fared poorly in recruiting from India, with the exception of East London (who recruited an extra 1,310 over last year).
I’ve also put together a reverse look up, allowing you to look at where international students come from at your provider. Here we can see that East London’s strong full time PGT performance in India is supported by wider recruitment from the subcontinent.
A place to live
The international education strategy was notable in raising the prospect of where international students would be expected to live. Here the issue is localised, so I’ve put together a heatmap showing where demand for housing (students renting, or in provider halls, or private halls) has risen year on year.
We don’t get the ability to sort by initial domicile – but here’s a peep at demand among all students.
The map on the left shows the difference between the number of students in these types of accommodation between the most recent year available (2024-25) and the one before (2023-24). These are ranked in the chart on the top left, while mousing over a dot here or on the map shows year on year changes at the provider in question using the bar chart at the bottom left. You can also filter by mode and level.
The red dots on the map show the biggest in year increase – showing how much additional capacity was needed last year in Edinburgh (at the University of Edinburgh) and Bristol (at UWE). In these cases a look at the bar chart suggests that this is a positive story, in that both have invested in more provider-owned capacity.
Local heroes
One of the big trends from the most recent End of Cycle data drop is the number of students that are choosing to study local to their home address. This clearly will have an impact on demand for rented accommodation, as students (especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds) decide that the expense of their own room is a bridge too far.
Here I’ve put together a dashboard that allows you to define “local” for yourself (in five mile increments) and see how many and what proportion of your students have a home address within that radius. To be clear this is an approximation (I’m using the central point of local authorities as a reference), but it is an interesting if indicative way of showing trends.
Set your chosen definition at the bottom and choose provider, level, and mode at the top. The students who live within pink areas are local – and you can see this by year using the bar chart on the left.
(There’s a lot of data and calculations behind this one, so do be patient as it will be slow).
A cold spot of winter
Of course, if a student is limited financially to staying at their home address, this may limit them academically in terms of what they are able to study. Not every subject is available in every area of the UK, and – in an environment where providers are trimming financially unviable courses and departments – this is an issue that is fast reaching the stage where someone needs to take a regulatory view on it.
Here’s another map, showing filters that let you see 2024-25 provision by (CAH level 3) subject – with the usual mode and level filters and the ability to look at the time series when you mouse over a provider. Bear in mind that some areas are not well served by universities at all (though I have shown information for every kind of provider UCAS collects data from).
An absence of a note on data quality
For the last couple of years, the HESA Student release has been delayed – and when it has finally arrived it has been surprisingly highly caveated. This year, a lot of effort has been put into getting the data out at the usual time.
It’s perhaps stretching things to say that the post-Data Futures Student collection is now a mature collection – indeed, there have been several changes in the data collection guidance and validation rules – and even in the coverage of particular fields – between 2023–24 and 2024–25. As such, there are still some outstanding issues with what has been published, including issues that affect the four charts above.
What I’m saying firstly is that if the charts look wrong it may be HESA rather than me, and what I’m saying secondly is that the absence of bright yellow boxes does not mean we can take everything in the open data release (or, perhaps more concerningly, being used for regulatory purposes) at face value.