Tag: finance

  • Podcast: International, UCAS data, student finance

    Podcast: International, UCAS data, student finance

    This week on the podcast the government has finally unveiled its new International Education Strategy – but with no headline target for international student numbers and a clear shift towards education exports, what does it mean for the sector?

    Plus the latest UCAS end of cycle data and what it reveals about entry qualifications at high tariff providers, and a new NUS campaign on student maintenance that’s turning the spotlight on parents.

    With Mike Ratcliffe, Senior Advisor at UWE Bristol, Richard Brabner, Visiting Professor of Civic Engagement at Newcastle University, Jen Summerton, Operations Director at Wonkhe and presented by Jim Dickinson, Associate Editor at Wonkhe.

    You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, Spotify, Acast, Amazon Music, Deezer, RadioPublic, Podchaser, Castbox, Player FM, Stitcher, TuneIn, Luminary or via your favourite app with the RSS feed.

    On the site

    UCAS End of Cycle, 2025: access and participation

    UCAS End of Cycle, 2025: provider recruitment strategies

    Graduates are paying more and getting less

    A new international education strategy

    Transcript (auto generated)

    It’s the Wonkhe Show. The long-awaited international education strategy finally lands, but where’s the numbers target? There’s UCAS data out, latest on who’s doing the hoovering, and NUS launches a new campaign aimed at mum and dad. It’s all coming up.

    “Yes, we think this is important, but this is definitely framed as the solution to your financial worries is to not bring more international students into this country. But it is still framed as international students are being valuable, what they bring, the globalisation. And then I thought that I’m annoyed that soft power boils down to how many presidents and prime ministers we have.”

    Welcome back to the Wonky Show, your weekly roundup of higher education news, policy and analysis. I’m your host, Jim Dickinson, and I’m here to help us make sense of it all. As usual, three excellent guests.

    In Oxford, Mike Bratcliffe is Senior Advisor at UWE Bristol. Mike, your highlight of the week, please.

    “It’s starting block. So we’ve got students back. They’re doing their programme-level induction, which is lovely. Having students run a campus game is particularly lovely because it means that catering feel confident enough to reopen the salad bar.”

    And in Newcastle this week, Richard Brabner is visiting Professor of Civic Engagement at Newcastle and LPD Place Fellow at the University of Birmingham. Richard, your highlight of the week, please.

    “Thanks, Jim. Well, I’ve actually based in South East London in Bromley, but my highlight of the week was actually going up to Newcastle on Monday and Tuesday, the first time in my visiting role, to talk to the senior team and various colleagues up there about our Civic 2.0 campaign, which is looking at the next steps for the civic university movement and how we can have more of an impact on policy and the incentives in the system. So that was all very fun and very exciting.”

    Lovely stuff. And near Loughborough this week, Jen Summerton is Operations Director at Wonky. Jen, your highlight of the week, please.

    “Thanks, Jen. My highlight of the week, workwise, is launching the Secret Life of Students programme yesterday because I’m really excited. We’ve got some great content in there. I’ve just got to cheekily add another one, which is that yesterday was my birthday and my daughter made me some chocolate covered strawberry demi-gorgons which were absolutely delicious.”

    Oh that reminds me, someone gave me some chocolate at Student Governors yesterday. I think that’s melted in my pocket anyway.

    So yes, we’ll start this week with international education. This week the government published a long-awaited refresh of its strategy. Jen, what is in it and perhaps what isn’t in it?

    “Yes, so I think we were told in autumn 2024 that we were due for a refresh of this, so it is long-awaited. Tuesday. Unsurprisingly, though, missing our headline target numbers on international students, which turned out to be a bit of a hot potato last time. I think in 2019 we had a 600,000 international student target.

    “So what we do have this time is a £40 billion target on education exports by 2030. And that’s up from 35 billion in the last strategy, although perhaps worth mentioning that the methodology has changed and obviously inflation’s in quite a bit since then. I think really the focus this time is on exports, and transnational education gets plenty of warm words.

    “There’s also a slight difference in terms of the strategy being co-owned by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Department for Business and Trade along with the DfE. So the reference to education as a soft power tool, lots about influencing. And there’s a focus on student experience and support for international students as well, infrastructure, housing, that kind of thing.”

    Well, this is interesting now. Richard, on LBC this week, actually in written form, despite the fact that it was on LBC’s website, Jackie Smith said, “If they are to survive, universities must maximise the opportunities and expand abroad.” That’s a signal of intent, isn’t it?

    “Absolutely. I think whether it’s the correct signal of intent will be depending on your perspective on these sort of things. I think this document reflects political reality and it’s essentially quite a small-c conservative document in a way. I personally think its pragmatism should be welcomed in the sense that it’s not telling the sector something it might want to hear but isn’t able to deliver on.

    “There’s clearly been some mixed reaction. I think there are some organisations that have clearly been involved in shaping this strategy, have really warmly welcomed it. But you’ve seen various other commentary from people, particularly from the international student recruitment market, that are more negative towards it because I don’t think it’s ambitious enough.

    “The shift in emphasis towards TNE is really interesting. It reminds me of the coalition government, where international students were included in the net migration target, but there wasn’t a cap on numbers. There were mixed messages, but they did shift emphasis towards TNE thinking it could be the answer to all our prayers.

    “But what’s challenging for Jackie Smith, and why the £40 billion target is arguably quite ambitious, is that it doesn’t really reflect the internal challenges universities are under at the moment. Are they really able to capitalise on this moving forward? We know some really positive examples of TNE overseas and they’ve highlighted that in the strategy, particularly in relation to India and so on.

    “But how difficult it is not just to build campuses but deliver effective partnerships when you’re restructuring your institution internally and investing overseas when there’s so much challenging change at home, I think is quite difficult. So perhaps it won’t be institution-led. It’ll be tech and other innovation in the system that might lead this.”

    Now, Mike, when I was planning the study tour this year, I was thrilled to be reminded that Premier Inn operated in Germany. When we got there, without going into detail, I think it’s fair to say they’re struggling to maintain quality. If there’s a massive expansion in TNE, there’s actually not been much regulatory attention on it. Are there a set of quality risks?

    “Well, there are. I think there’s a lot of scope to think about TNE and its opportunities. If you go back to a UUKi report last month, it shows how much growth we’ve had. But it also makes the point that there’s a distinction between TNE actually delivered in country and TNE done by distance and other flexible means.

    “There’s an artefact in the report, that picture of them all in India with the Prime Minister, and you think, well, that’s a big ‘let’s build a campus’ kind of TNE. That’s the big slow burn stuff.

    “We don’t know. OfS continue to threaten English providers with expanding the scope of what they’re going to do and then going quiet on it again. What would be really good is some kind of backup that says, this is the kind of thing we’re going to be doing over the next three to four years, so institutions know they don’t go and set up provision and then fall foul of some new rule applied to people in a completely different country, which no one knew was coming.

    “The report talks about taking out red tape. If we’re going to start to put more red tape onto TNE, that’s not going to work.”

    Well, that’s interesting, isn’t it? Look, Jen, one of the things that strikes me is the Foreign Office’s logo is on this time, but the Home Office’s logo isn’t. We still have this split between immigration policy and what amounts to an export policy. How much joint government is going on here?

    “I mean, it’s an interesting one because in a sense, the new strategy is seeking cross-government commitment. We’ve got the Foreign Office and we’ve got the trade and business side involved. That’s quite a big ask.

    “In one way, Jackie Smith is saying if they are to survive, universities must maximise opportunities. Actually, she’s also saying it has to be done meaningfully and with purpose. Doing all of this in the right way at the same time as universities facing the financial constraints they’re under is a hugely ambitious task and it will be a lot easier for some institutions than others.

    “We need to be careful that the sector can support all institutions to do this in the right way and with purpose. And thinking about home students as well, how do we create opportunities overseas that benefit students in the UK? How can we make this across the board beneficial and valuable for everybody and greater than the sum of its parts?”

    Back on the main international recruitment stuff, Richard. A lot of other countries have national-level initiatives around experience, mental health, emergency financial support, housing, and so on. There’s very little here that moves the dial beyond warm words on urging institutions to offer the best experience.

    “Yeah. I think it does mention infrastructure and housing, which I’m not sure it did previously. Small steps forward, you could argue.

    “There are two things I’d pick up on. Firstly, it says it supports the sector-led agent quality framework, which is welcome, but I personally don’t think it goes far enough in protecting students from bad practice. There’s plenty of that out there, and it presents a reputational risk. It could be strengthened, perhaps through a co-regulatory approach with government and sector together.

    “Secondly, there’s a cursory mention of outcomes, but in a limited way. When we ran the Student Futures Commission a few years ago, there was a sub-commission looking at the international student experience. Graduate outcomes and employability were a major theme. The UK sector needs to get better at facilitating opportunities not just in the UK but also in the countries students come from and may return to.

    “I think there might be a role for government, not necessarily funding lots of things, but facilitating pooling resources and knowledge-sharing, particularly around graduate opportunities overseas.

    “And from a civic lens, another missing piece is utilising international students intentionally to support economic and social growth in towns and cities beyond their spending power. How could we facilitate their expertise and knowledge with small businesses that want to grow export-led approaches overseas, including in their own countries? That could support graduate outcomes and business in this country.”

    But Mike, this is part of the problem, isn’t it? When you’ve got a strategy separated from the trade-offs the Home Office has to make on immigration policy, you end up with an international education strategy that doesn’t really rehearse whether we want international graduates, whether we need immigration, ageing population, sustainable migration. That framing ends up missing and it reads like export promotion.

    “I suppose that framing of ‘we support the sustainable recruitment of high quality international students’ is sat there on the face of the thing, which is fine. There are clearly paragraphs there to show the sector they’re paying attention. That framing of genuine students, that’s a concern because the Home Office is sitting on a lot of casework suggesting it is concerned that some people who come here are not genuine students.

    “There’s something weird in how the Home Office, on the one hand, is activist in this area, but on the other hand it hasn’t used the CAS system where it allocates the number of students a place can recruit. It’s not done anything to deal with what sometimes looks like boom and bust in recruitment.

    “So that’s the tension. Yes, we think this is important, but this is definitely framed as the solution to your financial worries is to not bring more international students into this country. But it is still framed as international students are very valuable, what they bring, the globalisation.

    “And then I thought I’m annoyed that soft power boils down to how many presidents and prime ministers we have. Wouldn’t it be marvellous to have procurement managers spread across the world with British degrees? Because that would be far better for an industry than the occasional president, who is subject to international whim.

    “What could we do to say that’s where we get value by having a lot of people who have an experience of British education? But also, increasingly, we come back to the TNE thing, a British education that they haven’t had to fly halfway around the world in order to get.”

    I mean, on the target thing, Jen, we should note there isn’t an explicit numbers target, but there also isn’t a cap or a cut of the sort being played with now in Canada and Australia.

    “Yeah, and to be honest, it doesn’t take people in the sector who know how to do these calculations to work that up into a numbers target if they want to. Individual institutions will be required to do that. They have to plan what proportion will be overseas, what will be TNE, what might be English language, whatever, and diversify it.

    “And obviously the majority will still be international students coming to the UK. They have to decide where they want to prioritise efforts and finances. We’re hearing this from government all the time. They’re putting the onus back on institutions to be creative about how they can make more money and diversify their offer.

    “If we don’t do it, other countries will do it. So we have to be in it to win it.”

    I was at student governance yesterday and ended up talking with four of them from a particular part of the country who said they don’t think their own university could sustain a campus abroad, but the four of them could probably collaborate on a multidisciplinary degree abroad. Are there opportunities for collaboration in the TNE space that aren’t being taken?

    “Yeah, I’m sure there must be. If institutions are going to be creative and innovative in this space, you’d think so. And that’s where there could be a role for government in developing this strategy, whether nationally or regionally, easing out tensions and creating partnerships that could be effective abroad.”

    And finally, Mike, one of the things that strikes me is there often doesn’t seem to be much interaction between students studying similar subjects on a TNE campus and back home. Academics fly backwards and forwards. Is there more opportunity for internationalisation at home, maybe a semester at the TNE campus, or mixing without requiring someone to spend years abroad?

    “Yeah, we’ve definitely seen that with places with fixed scale campuses abroad. The opportunity to continue your course but do it in China or Malaysia is part of the offer.

    “There are American universities that bring their students here for a semester and get an experience but stay on course, and have the opportunity to mix with different people.

    “What will be interesting is whether you can do that with technology. If you’ve got your VLE set up and you’re teaching the module, what opportunities are there to make that module available to people in two or three other countries at the same time as people are doing it in the UK? Opportunities for group work, sharing resources, getting global perspective without anyone moving an inch. There’s lots more we could develop. There are good examples already of how people are making their TNE enrich the experience of UK students.”

    Well, fascinating. Now, let’s see who’s been blogging for us this week.

    “Hi, I’m Common Miles and this week on Wonky I’ll be writing about why universities struggle to act on early warning data from their analytics systems. Many of us have seen this, universities investing heavily in learning analytics. The OfS sets clear continuation thresholds, yet when dashboards flag at risk students, institutions often can’t respond effectively.

    “My article explores why this is an organisational challenge rather than a technology problem. The issue is that universities are structured for retrospective quality assurance, not proactive support. When analytics identifies a struggling student in week three, most institutions lack clear protocols for who should act and how.

    “Successful institutions solve this by building explicit governance frameworks and creating tiered response systems that bridge the gap between regulatory requirements and teacher judgment. You can read the full piece on Wonky.”

    Now, next up, UCAS has released provider-level end-of-cycle data for 2025, and it’s thrown up some interesting patterns, Mike.

     

    Source link

  • Effective finance governance is about balancing high quality data with managing existential uncertainty

    Effective finance governance is about balancing high quality data with managing existential uncertainty

    Higher education institution finances are not like the finances of other organisations, in the strange blend of commercial imperative and charitable purpose.

    A big portion of their revenue is driven by loss-making activity in research and programmes that lose money; their surplus-driving activity in international recruitment is hyper-competitive; and they have a cost base in salaries, pensions, and infrastructure that are influenced by factors outside their direct control.

    The current moment of financial pressure on higher education has tightened focus on the governance of university finances, with concerns expressed by the Department for Education and the Office for Students in the English context, and particular scrutiny from government and regulators in Scotland in light of the financial crisis at the University of Dundee last year.

    To the extent that governments set the terms of the higher education funding settlement it is perhaps unreasonable to lay blame for any given higher education institution’s financial struggles at the feet of the board of governors or university leadership. But even with this caveat, the realities of the current moment call for well-managed internal financial governance and robust scrutiny and challenge of the executive’s plans from governing bodies.

    None of this is straightforward – the structures and cultures of higher education require a level of negotiation between academic priorities, external policy drivers, and organisational sustainability. Commercial acumen must be balanced with consciousness of the social mission and the rewards offered by short-term opportunities set against the responsibility to steward organisations that play a critical role in the national wellbeing for the long term.

    Together with TechnologyOne, we recently convened a private round table discussion among a group of COOs and financial directors, representing a diverse range of higher education institutions. We wanted to explore how these pressures are manifesting as emerging priorities for governance, and the nature of those priorities for finance leaders.

    Board cultures and capabilities

    One participant wryly observed that not every board member may have a full understanding of the scale of the challenges facing the sector as a whole, and their institution in particular, at the point of taking up their role, and their first exposure to the financial realities can sometimes be shocking. Commercial experience and acumen are much in demand on boards in financially challenging times, but that commercial awareness has to be deployed in the service of financial sustainability – and the definition of “sustainability” can be something of a moving target, especially when the future is uncertain.

    Attendees shared several examples of the kind of tensions around financial decision-making boards have to work through: between the cash demands of the next 18 months and the longer-term investments that will ensure the institution is still able to achieve its mission five years or a decade into the future; or between stockpiling reserves to guard against future risks versus delivering mission-led activity.

    There can be no right answer to these questions, and ultimately it is for the leadership of the institution to be accountable for these kinds of strategic choices. It is not that board members don’t understand the financial fundamentals, but that, attendees reflected, the nature of the trade-offs and the implications of some decisions may not be fully taken account of as the discussion unfolds. Financial directors and CFOs can play a critical role in ensuring these board-level discussions are shaped constructively, through prior briefing with board and committee chairs, and through being brought into the discussion as appropriate.

    Risk, risk appetite and forecasting

    Boards are, in light of ongoing public discussion about the risk of institutional financial crisis or even insolvency, naturally concerned about avoiding being the next institution to hit the headlines as facing serious financial challenge. Paradoxically, there was also a sense that this driving concern can lead to risk averse behaviours that are not always in the best interest of the organisation, such as conserving cash that could be used for surplus generating activity, or looking at revenue raising independently from the costs implied in raising revenue – the gap between the revenue and real cost of undertaking research being a classic example.

    One area to improve is understanding of risks, and risk appetite. Boards can, broadly, be appraised of risk and particularly financial risk. However, they can be less fluent in considering the risk they are willing to endure in order to solve some of their underlying challenges, or the relationship between risk and opportunity. For example, boards may see an inherent risk in their cash flow position. They often lean toward conserving cash (a low risk appetite) but this may actually worsen their cash position if they do not look at revenue generation (a more risky proposition.) At the other end of the spectrum boards may be tempted to pursue opportunities to raise revenue that do not contribute to, or distract from, the wider organisational mission and strategic objectives.

    Dealing with uncertainty is never easy, and there was a lively discussion about the role and purpose of financial forecasting, with one attendee pointing out that the idea of creating a five year financial forecast in a sector that is changing so rapidly is “a bit of a nonsense” with another observing “the only thing we know when we’re putting together our forecast is that it’s wrong.”

    It was noted that some boards spend very little time on the forecast and it was suggested that this was an area for greater focus, not to attempt to accurately predict the unpredictable but to socialise discussion about the nature of the uncertainties and their implications. One attendee argued that the point of the forecast is not in the accuracy of the numbers but that there are agreed actions following from the forecast – “we know what we’re going to do as a result.” Another suggested that the Office for Students could potentially offer some additional insight into what it expects to see in the financial returns at the point of preparing those returns, rather than raising concerns after the fact.

    Data and systems

    The institutional systems that bring together disparate financial systems into a single picture are of varying quality. Sometimes, universities are dependent on an amalgamation of systems, spreadsheets, and other data sources, that involve a degree of manual reconciliation. Inevitably, the more systems that exist and the more people who input the more room there is for disagreement and error. Even the most sophisticated systems that include automation and checks are only as accurate as the information provided to them.

    The accuracy and clarity of financial information matters enormously. Without it it becomes impossible to know where the gaps are in terms of income and costs. Managers and budget-holders cannot understand their own situation and it becomes much harder to present a clear picture to executive teams and from there, to boards. A key “ask” of financial management systems was to integrate with other data sources in ways that allow the presentation of financial information to be legible and allow for a clear story to emerge.

    Attendees at the round table reported a number of areas of focus in tightening up internal financial management and visibility of financial information. One critical area of focus was in improving general financial literacy across the organisation, so that institutional staff could understand their institution’s financial circumstances in more detail. Institutional sustainability is everybody’s problem, not just the finance team’s.

    In reporting to board, attendees were working on shortening and clarifying papers, providing more contextual information, and making greater use of visual aids and diagrams, with one attendee noting “the quality of management reports is an enabler of good governance.”

    In times of financial pressure and challenge, the quality of financial decision-making is ever more intimately tied to the quality of financial information. Budget holders, finance teams, executive teams, and boards all need to be able to assess the current state of things and plan for the future, despite its uncertainties.

    Effective governance in this context doesn’t mean fundamentally changing the management processes or governors departing from their traditional role of scrutiny and accountability, but it does mean engaging in an ongoing process of improving basic financial processes and management information – while at the same time embedding a culture of constructive discussion about the overall financial position across the whole institution.

    This article is published as part of a partnership with TechnologyOne, focused on effective financial governance. Join Wonkhe and TechnologyOne on Thursday 29 January 12.00-1.00pm for a free webinar, Show them the money: exploring effective governance of university finances.

    Source link

  • Donor disclosure and campaign finance at SCOTUS

    Donor disclosure and campaign finance at SCOTUS

    The Institute for Free Speech’s Bradley Smith and Brett Nolan join the show to discuss two upcoming Supreme Court arguments involving donor disclosure (First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin) and political party contributions to candidates (National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC).

    The conversation also explores the broader landscape for political speech and campaign regulation, what legal battles may be next for the Supreme Court, and how both guests found their way into First Amendment advocacy.

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Intro

    01:32 What is the Institute for Free Speech?

    02:39 Personal paths into free speech work

    05:10 First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin

    32:08 NRSC v. FEC

    51:50 What’s next for campaign finance at SCOTUS?

    54:58 Outro

    Enjoy listening to the podcast? Donate to FIRE today and get exclusive content like member webinars, special episodes, and more. If you became a FIRE Member through a donation to FIRE at thefire.org and would like access to Substack’s paid subscriber podcast feed, please email [email protected].

    Source link

  • Podcast: Banned algorithms, Schools curriculum, Wales student finance

    Podcast: Banned algorithms, Schools curriculum, Wales student finance

    This week on the podcast we examine the Office for Students’ (OfS) renewed scrutiny of degree classification algorithms and what it means for confidence in standards.

    We explore the balance between institutional autonomy, transparency for students and employers, and the evidence regulators will expect.

    Plus we discuss the government’s response to the Francis review of curriculum and assessment in England, and the Welsh government’s plan to lift the undergraduate fee cap in 2026–27 to align with England with a 2 per cent uplift to student support.

    With Alex Stanley, Vice President for Higher Education of the National Union of Students, Michelle Morgan, Dean of Students at the University of East London, David Kernohan, Deputy Editor at Wonkhe and presented by Mark Leach, Editor-in-Chief at Wonkhe.

    Algorithms aren’t the problem. It’s the classification system they support

    The Office for Students steps on to shaky ground in an attempt to regulate academic standards

    Universities in England can’t ignore the curriculum (and students) that are coming

    Diamond’s a distant memory as Wales plays inflation games with fees and maintenance

    What we still need to talk about when it comes to the LLE

    You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, Spotify, Acast, Amazon Music, Deezer, RadioPublic, Podchaser, Castbox, Player FM, Stitcher, TuneIn, Luminary or via your favourite app with the RSS feed.

    Source link

  • Mini Project Ideas for MBA Students (HR, Marketing, Finance, IT) – 2025 Guide

    Mini Project Ideas for MBA Students (HR, Marketing, Finance, IT) – 2025 Guide

    What is a mini project in MBA?

    It’s a short research or practical study done by students to apply concepts from their coursework.

    How do I choose a mini project topic?

    Focus on relevance, data availability, and your area of interest.

    How many pages should a mini project report be?

    Usually 20–30 pages, depending on university guidelines.

    Source link

  • ‘Everything, everywhere, all at once’: How Trump has upended higher ed finance in 2025

    ‘Everything, everywhere, all at once’: How Trump has upended higher ed finance in 2025

    NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Liz Clark would have lost a bet on the massive Republican tax and spending bill passed and signed into law earlier this month. 

    Clark, the vice president for policy and research at the National Association of College and University Business Officers, said she didn’t expect the bill to be finalized until early fall. While only off by a few months, Clark’s missed guess illustrates just one of many unexpected developments for higher education — and the world — since President Donald Trump retook office in January. 

    Speaking at NACUBO’s annual conference near Washington, D.C., on Sunday, Clark pointed to more than a decade of divided governments, intraparty policy squabbles and political gridlock as Democrats and Republicans have traded thin majorities in Congress. 

    Based on that history, it might have seemed improbable that Republicans could swiftly move a massive policy package through two houses of Congress where they held razor-thin leads. But Republicans did, and Congress got a bill to Trump’s desk by the date he demanded. 

    “This is a quintessential moment in seeing that past performance is no indication of future results,” Clark said. 

    The bill has plenty of implications for college finance departments, not to mention students and all other stakeholders in higher education. And it’s just one of many policy sea changes the sector has seen since Trump and a Republican-led Congress came to office six short months ago. 

    From new taxes to new legal liabilities, below is a look at how politics and policy are impacting college finance offices. 

    A blitz of executive orders

    So far in his roughly six months in office, Trump has already issued more executive orders than Joe Biden did during his entire four-year term. According to data from the American Presidency Project, Trump is on pace to issue more orders per year than any other president in history, except potentially Franklin Roosevelt in his first term at the height of the Great Depression. 

    And several of those orders have cut to the heart of higher ed in the U.S., including orders targeting college diversity initiatives and seeking to revamp accreditation. 

    “Every president has tested the limits of executive power. This is not new,” Clark said. “What is new, at least for us, especially when it comes to issues impacting higher education, is the scope, the number of executive orders, the number of changes in law that are impacting your campuses.” She added, “We have, this year, been dealing with everything, everywhere, all at once.”

    Trump’s order on diversity, equity and inclusion programs has drawn rebukes, including through litigation, for being vague and potentially stifling to free speech and intellectual activity. 

    “DEI is not illegal,” Clark said, pointing specifically to the administration’s executive order on the topic. 

    College researchers, meanwhile, are being asked to certify their compliance with executive orders, including those related to DEI, when applying for grants. That can present a dicey situation when directives are vaguely worded. 

    In some cases, federal agencies have even asked researchers to certify compliance with all future executive orders that may be issued someday, noted Jen Gartner, deputy general counsel for University of Maryland, College Park, at a NACUBO conference panel Monday.

    “Obviously, we don’t know what we would be certifying compliance with,” Gartner said.

    Certification requirements for grants can vary by agency, but Gartner noted the one commonality is that they “now all mention that our certification is material for the False Claims Act.”

    The False Claims Act bars fraud in government contracting. Trump’s Department of Justice in May launched an initiative that threatens universities with investigations under the law over their DEI programs and policies for transgender students and athletes.    

    Source link

  • University Finance and Managing the Margins of Error

    University Finance and Managing the Margins of Error

    • By Huw Morris, Honorary Professor of Tertiary Education at the Institute of Education, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, and Richard Watermeyer, Professor of Education at the School of Education, University of Bristol.
    • Over the weekend, HEPI blogged on the possible consequences for universities and students of a new UK / EU agreement – see here.

    The financial challenges currently facing UK universities, as revealed by last week’s report from the Office for Students, have focused attention among university leaders, government policy makers and media commentators, as well as higher education staff and students, on four things:

    What has received less attention are variations between universities in the number of students recruited in general and international students in particular, as influenced by perceptions of institutional quality, and the wider incomes and costs of this provision. It is these things which impact on institutional margins, their surpluses and losses, and determine their longer-term financial sustainability. Most importantly, there are very big differences between universities when assessed by these measures. With a HM Treasury Spending Review and a Department for Education Higher Education White Paper expected imminently, it is these wider institutional economics and financial management issues which are the focus of this article.

    Higher Education Statistics (HESA) data reveals a very mixed pattern of financial activity and performance among the 302 higher education institutions that filed accounts for 2022/23, the last year for which full records are available. Income from all sources, including tuition fees, research funds, government grants, endowments and other miscellaneous sources for these organisations, has ranged from £84,000 at the Caspian School of Academics to £2.5 billion at the University of Cambridge. Despite such wide variance, 88 institutions are responsible for over 80% of the income; within this group, the 24 members of the UK’s Russell Group of research-intensive universities account for the lion’s share (47.3% despite attracting only 25.8% of total student numbers). This mismatch between volume and income is explained by the financial margins of course provision.

    The costs universities incur are similar. Salaries for academic, professional services and support staff vary, but national pay bargaining and pension arrangements mean that the differences are not great. Meanwhile, the costs of campus buildings per square metre and the unit costs of equipment are similar. So, while there are significant differences in the number of staff, size of university estate and scale of expenditure on equipment, most institutional leaders are alert to the key metrics that help to marshal these aggregate costs. The big difference in costs is in supporting research activity, with the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) data revealing £4.6 billion a year of unfunded activity. This is a measure of the research activity undertaken by university academic staff, which is not supported by research funds and appears to be undertaken within hours nominally allocated to other things, such as teaching and administration. It is this and related figures that the Minister of State for Skills is referring to when she challenges universities to be more transparent with the information they provide on their use of public money.

    At a UK level, information on this activity is not hard to find. Table C.1.2. of the OECD’s Education at a Glance reveals that the UK has a higher level of expenditure on research and development per HE student than the US, despite very much lower levels of Gross Domestic Product per capita. The proportion of unfunded research activity varies considerably between institutions and is lowest among Russell Group universities and highest among institutions that are seeking to increase activity from a lower base.

    What is understood by most university leaders, but less commonly by policymakers and the media, is the vital role of operating margins in determining whether a university is financially sustainable. The role of margins is best illustrated by comparing two fictional universities.

    University A is a large research-led institution that offers a wide range of courses to home and overseas students. In 2021/22, in keeping with the average Russell Group university, one third of its students were recruited from overseas and its position in the Chinese Academic World Ranking of Universities (AWRU) – and to a lesser extent the QS and THE World rankings – enabled the university to charge fees of £80,000 for its MBA programme, £60,000 per year for its Medicine degree to overseas students, and £20,000 per year for its doctoral programme. These high fees and the large volume of students applying for a limited number of places generated sufficient margins (gross surplus) to subsidise the costs of the less remunerative courses for home students in subject disciplines such as English Literature where the full-time undergraduate degree fee is £9,535 per year. This was important because the cost of these courses with the higher charging courses for international students was typically twice the £9,535 per full-time student income earned from UK students, not least because of the costs of the providing time and resources for staff research in these disciplines where there was no grant income to support this activity. These funds also provided the financial resources to underpin some of the research work of academic staff and their professional services colleagues.

    The picture is less rosy at University B, a large former polytechnic, with a much lower ranking in international league tables and which is consequently less competitive in attracting Chinese international students. Instead, University B is dependent on recruiting first-generation international students; students typically from less wealthy families, unable to afford the premium fees charged at University A. At University B, the fee for an MBA is £20,000, although this is often discounted and then diluted by recruitment agency fees. The high sticker price and subsequent use of discounting is used because the advertised fee is a marker of quality and the discount fee is used to draw the student in by adjusting the amount to what they can afford and flattering them into believing the university wants them for their talents. University B does not have a Medical school and so a comparator fee is not available, but the fee for an international student on a science and technology degree is £18,000. When diluted by agents’ fees and discounted prices, this fee may drop below the costs of provision. Finally, the PhD course fees of £5,000 per year only cover half the running costs in order to attract students who will help to boost external assessments of the research undertaken by this university.

    Figure 1. Course prices and costs compared

    The net effect of the combination of different course prices and costs at University A and University B is that the former is making significant gross surpluses and the latter is making significant gross losses. It is important to note that this pattern of surpluses and losses is also evident in the financial performance of other university services, including, for instance, franchise courses in the UK and overseas, student accommodation, conference facilities, catering and other services. This is because the prices charged by institutions with less auspicious reputations and league table positions are lower than those of their competitors, but the costs are similar.

    There are also issues associated with capital requirements (the need for funding to pay for the renewal and replacement of buildings and other assets) and risk exposure (the extent to which future activity is certain and predictable). The number of young British people wanting to study at UK universities has historically been predictable, and while there has been competition between universities, this competition has rarely led to institutional failure. Institutions may have got smaller, closed courses, and on occasion merged, but they have not been forced into insolvency. Such relative assurance may wane in future as risks rise and the need to renew and replace buildings and other capital assets grows.

    We might, for instance, reasonably anticipate increased risk associated with international student recruitment where geopolitical and concomitant financial volatility impact the inward migration of students into UK universities. While we have already witnessed the inhibitory effects of visa rule changes, we can reasonably expect exchange rate fluctuations and changes to the proclivity of overseas governments to fund students studying in the UK to further increase these risks. In the medium term, a requirement to maintain a high ranking in international university league tables, as corresponding justification for high fee charges, compels sizable financial investment in buildings, equipment, and staff to maintain the research performance.

    Assessment of university performance in the AWRU, QS and THE World University rankings is dependent on research performance measured by citations and, in the case of the QS and THE specifically, the reputation of the institution in the eyes of senior leaders in other universities and the opinions of employers. These ratings are influenced by past rankings and impressions of campus quality. In the long term, maintaining these league table positions is likely to become more demanding for three reasons.

    • First, the drive by governments in many other countries to create their own ‘world-class’ universities leads to an increase in the costs of competing and a consequent decline in margins.
    • Second, the growing prominence of philanthropy and alumni giving looks set to make up an increasing proportion of the funding of highly ranked institutions, though this is less of a feature in UK higher education. In the USA, for example, higher education endowment is around $800 billion and is growing by 150% per year. Endowments now account for 50% of the income of Harvard University and a very sizeable proportion of the income of other Ivy League and American research-led institutions. Of course, whether this remains the case in the face of challenges from President Trump’s new administration remains to be seen.
    • Finally, in the longer term (10 to 30 years), it seems reasonable to predict that developing countries in the Global South will develop their own higher education provision, and the number of young people travelling overseas to study will reduce, as is being encouraged by the China-Africa 100 University plan and similar initiatives.  

    The lessons of this analysis for institutional leaders and their governing bodies and councils are that they should broaden their focus to consider the operating margins on all their activities, (that is, teaching, research, accommodation, conferences, room and equipment hire) as well as the investment requirements to maintain this performance in the medium to long term. Without engaging in these types of analysis, the risks of cashflow problems will grow and the longer-term sustainability of these institutions will be jeopardised.

    The lesson for governments is that they should look at the real costs of different courses and focus the funding that is made available through student loans and grants on those activities which will provide the greatest sustainable private and public benefit in the long run. This means aligning the funding with future needs, as defined by assessments in the NHS Workforce plan and the analyses by Skills England, Local Skills Improvement Plans and the UK shortage occupation list and, where this is not the case, subject areas where it seems probable that the student loans will be repaid. If institutions wish to fund programmes that fall outside these lists, then they can subsidise these courses with surpluses made from other activities. The issues outlined above also mean that the pressures facing institutions are different, and it is probably beyond the capability of the Department for Education and the Office for Students to oversee the transitions that will be needed in many of the 452 higher education institutions in the UK. To handle these changes will require additional leadership, management and governance resource and ideally greater local and regional stewardship for most institutions.

    Source link

  • Free speech, graduates, student finance

    Free speech, graduates, student finance








    By submitting you agree to our terms and conditions

    Source link

  • Senate Finance Committee Holds Hearing on Paid Leave – CUPA-HR

    Senate Finance Committee Holds Hearing on Paid Leave – CUPA-HR

    by CUPA-HR | November 14, 2023

    On October 25, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on federal paid leave. This comes as congressional Democrats and Republicans have shown interest in finding bipartisan consensus for a federal paid leave program. The hearing also provided policymakers and witnesses the opportunity to discuss the promise and drawbacks of paid leave proposals.

    Increasing employee access to paid leave was a primary focus of the hearing. Both sides of the aisle agreed that all workers will need to take leave during their careers without the obligation to juggle work requirements. Policymakers highlighted that 70 percent of Americans want national paid leave and that 72 percent of Americans who are not currently working cite caregiving and family responsibilities as the main reason. To address these issues, Democrats argued for a federally mandated paid leave program, while Republicans worried that a one-size-fits-all program could limit employer-provided paid leave options and be difficult to implement on a wide scale.

    Witnesses Describe Potential Benefits of Federal Paid Leave

    Some of the witnesses discussed the benefits of a federal paid leave program, concluding that better access to paid leave would benefit workers, employers and the economy. Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, stated that offering paid leave tends to benefit both workers and employers through increased labor force participation (both for women and generally), worker retention, and wage growth. Ben Verhoeven, president of Peoria Gardens Inc., added that investing in paid leave gave him better return on investment than his capital investments, as implementing paid leave increased business growth and employee retention and promotions.

    Objection to a One-Size-Fits-All Leave Program

    Despite these benefits, Elizabeth Milito, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business’s Small Business Legal Center, said that employers would face trade-offs under a federal paid leave program. Milito argued that employers operating on the same amount of funds but under new federal benefit requirements would be obliged to provide paid leave as a benefit, leading to some employers being unable to provide higher compensation or other benefits like health insurance. Rachel Greszler, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said that in response to state paid leave programs, some companies choose to send workers to the state program first and then supplement the paid leave benefit to provide 100 percent wage replacement. This creates an administrative burden for the employee, who receives full wage replacement only if they participate in both paid leave programs.

    Republicans and their witnesses also said that a federal program would require flexibility and simplicity to be most effective. Milito and Greszler concurred that most small businesses do not have a qualified HR professional to deal with additional compliance needs. Greszler also stated that the biggest unintended consequence of a one-size-fits-all approach would be a rigid structure that does not work for most employees and businesses. She specified that a carve-out for small businesses or the ability to opt in to a federal program would be most appropriate.

    CUPA-HR continues to monitor for any updates on federal paid leave programs and will keep members apprised of any new developments.



    Source link

  • Some finance recommendations for activists

    Some finance recommendations for activists

    I have seen some confusions recently on twitter regarding university finances. Here are four recommendations:

    1. Avoid using sector aggregate figures to make your arguments
      The sector is very uneven both in terms of size of institutions and in financial performance, make sure you are familiar with your institution and how it fits into the sector.
    2. Avoid using figures for “reserves” when you mean cash
      In accounting terms, “reserves” does not mean cash. Cash is included in reserves but that is because reserves names the excess of assets over liabilities: that the institution owns more than it owes. If it didn’t have reserves it would be insolvent. But its assets include buildings and land, which can dominate the reserves figure.
      It is a confusion that crops up regularly and is often associated with right-wing arguments about the sector being “awash with cash”. If you want to talk about cash, use the figures for cash – but bear in mind that it is good management to hold significant levels of cash or other liquid assets to manage the day-to-day running of the organisation. Universities are large and have large outgoings!
    3. Revolving Credit Facilities (RCFs) are like overdrafts …
      If you have one, you aren’t necessarily planning to use it.
      It provides extra headroom or is there for an emergency. Universities might simply be using it in their “liquidity” calculations to assure OfS that they have sufficient resources to cover 30 days of expenditure – falling below that level is a “reportable event” – and never intend to use it.
      That your institution negotiated one, but haven’t used it, is not per se a sign of bad management.
    4. Avoid confusing one-off costs with recurrent costs
      There is a clear difference between spending £1million on a one-off purchase and an annual outgoing of £1million.
      Your management may not always present the difference between such items in a very clear way, particularly when they have a certain narrative they wish to present or when they need to hit targets or covenants.
      One to be wary of is “vacancy savings”. Are these higher because of a recruitment freeze? Are these one-offs or recurrent savings? Technically, the former; they would only become recurrent savings, if the posts are made redundant.
      A management highlighting a certain level of vacancy savings may want to convey discipline to governors or lenders, but it can mask issues of sustainability: it isn’t a way to address persistent deficits. If there is an underlying deficit of, say, £2million, you shouldn’t be confident because they covered that through a recruitment freeze this year. And that’s solely from the numbers perspective: before you consider the implications for workload …

    There are a few resources on this site for thinking about university finances. There is also a blog and recorded seminar for UCU on getting started with university accounts and “challenging the financial narrative”.

    If you want more help, please get in touch.

    I have worked with more than 40 UCU branches over the last few years to help with negotiations. Get in touch for details.

    A testimonial:




    Source link