Tag: Making

  • Making grants and the levy work

    Making grants and the levy work

    Opinions vary about the desirability of the levy on international student fees, and the value of the promised return of targeted maintenance grants.

    Rightly so. The announcement and the descriptions of policies within, were political in nature. They were made at a party conference rather than a ministerial statement or consultation document – they were designed to please some, challenge others, and above all to start a debate.

    And as such, all these opinions are valuable. The government will listen to representations, seek commentary and challenge, and eventually start to spell out some more of the detail and implementation.

    Implementation couldn’t care less about opinions or political expediency. Implementation is a matter of whether something can actually be done, and how.

    My number one priority

    Let’s take the simplistic approach, and call the income the government gets from the levy something around £620m (more on that later).

    In the grand scheme of things that’s not a huge amount of money – we paid out more than £8bn on maintenance loans in 2023-24. However, the much-maligned magic money twig (the OfS’ funding for student access and success) is currently just £273m, and it is ostensibly doing part of the same job as the proposed grants – helping non-traditional students access and succeed in higher education. Of course, it mostly goes on hardship grants these days, which is neither what it is designed for nor any meaningful remedy for a student maintenance system that is not fit for purpose. But that makes the parallel even clearer.

    Any extra money going to students, in this economy and with this level of unwillingness to do anything truly radical about student hardship, is welcome. But the kicker is that it is not enough to be from a deprived background to get the new money – you also need to be studying the right subjects. As we’ve already noted, these are the same “priority subjects” as have been set within the Lifelong Learning Entitlement: vaguely STEMish, but with no medicine but added architecture and economics.

    You survived all you been through

    At the end of every cycle UCAS published data on acceptances using a fine-grained (CAH level 3) subject lens, separated by level of deprivation – which in England means the IMD quintile. From this we learn that in the most recent data (2024 cycle) just under 42 per cent of all England domiciled accepted applicants from IMD quintile 1 (the most deprived group) were accepted onto a “priority subject”.

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    This is a substantially higher proportion than in any other IMD quintile – it is also a substantially higher number: 39,870. We don’t get quite the same level of subject fidelity for offers and applications, but it appears that quintile 1 applicants are also much more likely to apply to priority subjects than any other group, and slightly more likely to receive an offer.

    In other words, as far as we can tell with the available data, there is not really a problem recruiting disadvantaged young people onto courses in subjects that the government is currently keen on.

    It is possible ministers may be thinking that adding the grants into the mix would drive these already encouraging numbers up even higher (and away from mere dilettante whims like, er, studying medicine, law, or biology). This would appear to ignore a rather expensive and lengthy experiment that has demonstrated that financial concerns (in the form, back then, of the sticker price) do not actually affect applicant behavior all that much, and when applicant behaviour is already trending in the way you might hope there’s maybe not a lot needs to be done.

    But if you assume that the entire annual levy covers a single year of grants for everyone in IMD quintile 1 in a priority subject – and let’s use the exact numbers here – we get 39,870 students sharing £620.52m: £15,560 each.

    That is baking in a bunch of assumptions around the way the levy is implemented, the way grant allocations are determined (is IMD, an area based measure, really the best way to allocate individual grants?), and even whether the entire levy is to be spent directly on grants and nothing else. But if these rather optimistic assumptions are right, we’re slightly above the current maximum loan (£13,762), and beginning to approach the government’s National Living Wage for those aged 18 to 20 (currently just under £18k). It’s not quite enough to live as a student for a year without working at all, but it would mean someone without any other means of support might not have to “work every hour god sends.”

    I’ll let you be my levy

    Let’s say you are an international student looking to study an integrated (4-5 year) Masters’ course in biomedical engineering at the University of Leicester. You’d be charged £25,100 a year (plus £6,275 if you do a year overseas, or £3,765 if you do a year in industry). As you are resident outside of the UK, you’d pay a deposit of £3,000 up front to secure your place. These figures will vary vastly depending on your choice of course and provider, but that gives you an idea of a ballpark figure.

    If you secured your place via an agent, you may have paid a fee up front to them. Your chosen university would also pay a fee to the agent for each successful application – these vary hugely, but let’s say it is 20 per cent of your first year of fees. In some cases, your university would also pay a direct fee to the agent, over and above their percentage of fee income. Combined, these can get pretty intense – far into the millions for providers that use agents, with some pushing £30m

    If you don’t quite meet some of the academic or English language requirements for your course, you may be accepted onto an international foundation year – often offered by another provider, either on behalf of your university or as a stand alone course. There will be fees for this too.

    Of course, before you are accepted onto your course, you’ll need a Tier 4 Student Visa. For all but a handful of countries, you’ll need evidence (the example given by the Foreign Office is a bank statement) that you currently have enough money to cover your fees for your first year plus nine months of living costs. Your visa will cost £524, plus you need to pay a healthcare surcharge (each year) of £776 each year.

    Let’s imagine for a moment that you never made a name for yourself

    If you are looking to design a levy, the first decision that you make will be what constitutes international fee income. Should it be the sticker price – as promoted to students? Should it, for example, include the fees an institution pays to an international agent? Should it include fees that the student pays to another institution for a co-branded international foundation year? Should you factor in that students are already paying a levy of sorts to cover the cost of issuing a visa or of providing access to the NHS? Should it include accommodation fees (or additional course fees) when these are paid directly to the provider?

    Or should a provider pay a proportion of everything it declares as (and auditors agree that is) international student fee income? At what point – when the fee is paid, when the course starts, when it is declared? And is there not a case to look at a levy on agents fees – there is big money to be made by agents, and unlike with providers no counter arguments about the student experience?

    The modelling I’ve done so far is deliberately simplistic – 6 per cent (or whatever is decided on) of declared fee income in the most recent HESA Finance Data. That’s a valid answer, but it is limited – it is not the same effect as you would get if a university had to pay 6 per cent of every international student’s fee at one of the points above. The Home Office modelling noted that in some cases fees themselves may rise to cover the levy, which may have a knock on effect on recruitment – and that in other cases providers themselves would swallow the cost.

    If you think about it like that – and also bear in mind the Public First angle on the types of students more likely to be dissuaded by higher fees – it is difficult not to see the regressive nature of the levy: well-off providers, who recruit well-heeled middle class students from countries where salaries are high, will pay more but will be able to pass the costs on to students. Providers newer to international recruitment, at the price sensitive end of the market, will lose out either way, and will have to work out whether the recruitment drop of a 6 per cent fee hike is worth more than 6 per cent of their current income.

    Such a funny thing for me to try to explain

    What if we don’t take the accountant’s way out? What if we calculate a levy based on what individual students actually pay?

    As noted above we don’t know – either generally or individually – what international students pay as fees. We also don’t really know how many students are currently paying them – HESA student data turns up after a quite considerable lag, and not all undergraduates (and no postgraduates!) show up in UCAS data.

    The closest we get to international student numbers, at all levels, in-year has historically been OfS’ HESES collection (which it uses to allocate OfS grant funding). I say historically because, from 2025-26 the information on domicile (previously used “for planning purposes”) will no longer be collected.

    If you want a levy based on what students actually pay, you need a new data collection covering the students involved and how much they have paid that year (perhaps separated out into qualifying and non-qualifying payments – with all of the early iteration problems that such things bring. Data Futures may eventually get there, but not for a good few years yet.

    Designing a new data collection is not for the faint of heart – we scrapped an entire section of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act (the bit dealing with income from overseas) primarily because it is a million times easier to torturously audit other data than to collect something new. It would be expensive, both centrally and for individual providers – and it would be commercially sensitive (not all international students pay the same fee for the same course at the same university).

    Know we’re jumping the gun

    At every point in this article, I’ve tried to get across just how broad brush the current details of this policy are. As my colleague Michael notes elsewhere, there is not even clarity that these two halves of an announcement are a part of the same policy, or that it is possible to irrevocably link an income stream with an outgoing like this in the public accounts.

    It is a political announcement, and as such leaping straight to implementation slightly misses the point – like with the “scrapping” of the “fifty per cent participation target” it might well be that how it lands is more important than how it works.

    But as I’ve also tried to show, implementation has no time for political expediency. Real decisions need to be taken, and the current configuration of the sector, of the application cycle, and of the various data collections need to be taken into account. And there’s a need to consider whether the behavioural changes you are trying to make would undermine the funding flows that you are intending will do so – the more parts to a policy the more unintended consequences there could be.

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  • Government Shutdown Could Delay ED Rule Making

    Government Shutdown Could Delay ED Rule Making

    All rule-making sessions for the Department of Education were held online from the start of the COVID pandemic to the beginning of the second Trump administration.

    J. David Ake/Getty Images

    If the government shuts down Wednesday, it’s not clear whether the Department of Education will be able to continue with the meetings it had planned to iron out a batch of regulatory changes this week.

    The advisory rule-making committee began its work Monday and was originally slated to continue through Friday. But at the start of Monday’s meeting, department officials noted that if the government runs out of funding Oct. 1, the remainder of the session would be delayed and the plan would be to resume virtually in two weeks. (This was consistent with a pending notice that was posted to the Federal Register in the morning.) 

    That all changed once again moments before Monday’s meeting ended when Jeffrey Andrade, the deputy assistant secretary for policy, planning and innovation, said the department was reconsidering its earlier statement and that the negotiated rule-making committee might be able to continue operating in person through the end of the week.

    “There is a possibility that we can work through this,” Andrade said, adding that he had just received word of the possibility himself. 

    The department is planning to furlough nearly 87 percent of its employees, according to its shutdown contingency plan. But officials are planning to keep employees who are working on the rule-making process on board as well as those working to implement Congress’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed in July.

    This rule-making session is focused on clarifying the details of new graduate loan caps and a consolidated version of the multiple existing income-driven repayment plans.

    Going into this week’s meetings, multiple higher education experts said that finalizing new regulations before the caps and repayment plans take effect July 1, 2026, would be difficult no matter what. A government shutdown, one added, could throw a wrench into the already tight timeline.

    “With such a crunched timeline for finishing the rules in the first place, this makes the department’s job much more challenging,” said Clare McCann, managing director of policy for the Postsecondary Education and Economics Research Center at American University. 

    One of this week’s rule-making committee members, who spoke with Inside Higher Ed on the condition of anonymity, said that while they were still uncertain how the rest of the week will play out, Andrade’s last-minute announcement gave them hope.

    “I’m not sure what to make of it and will be waiting for clearer answers in the morning,” the committee member said. “But I know the department is working hard to get as much done as possible.”  

    That said, if the session does end up moving online, it wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary for department staff members. All sessions prior to the start of the second Trump administration were held online since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020.

    The real challenge, McCann noted, would likely be having enough staff to facilitate the session, regardless of its modality. 

    “Certainly the department will be able to keep some of this moving, but they will undoubtedly also have some employees who are not considered essential and are furloughed during a shutdown,” McCann said. “It takes many people at the department to make a rule making happen, and so any loss of personnel is going to present a challenge, even if they’re able to keep some of the core team that’s involved.”

    Under the contingency plan, student aid distributions will not be paused and loan payments will still be due. The department will, however, pause civil rights investigations and cease grant-making activities, though current grantees will still be able to access funds awarded by Sept. 30.

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  • ED Rule Making Will Move Online if Government Shuts Down

    ED Rule Making Will Move Online if Government Shuts Down

    All rule-making sessions for the Department of Education were held online from the start of the COVID pandemic to the beginning of the second Trump administration.

    Screenshot/Alexis Gravely

    The Education Department’s current rule-making session, in which committee members are determining how to implement new student loan policies, will be delayed by two weeks if Congress fails to pass legislation to keep the government open, Trump officials announced Monday morning.

    “There is the possibility—which seems to be growing by the hour—of a lapse in appropriations,” one department official said during the rule-making session’s commencement Monday. “Have no fear, however,” he added, “we do have a contingency plan for that.”

    The official, Jeffrey Andrade, deputy assistant secretary for policy, planning and innovation, went on to explain that if the government does shut down Oct. 1, the remainder of the session would take place online from Oct. 15 to 17. (The plans were also posted to the Federal Register on Monday.)

    Managing a virtual negotiated rule-making session, however, would be nothing new to the department staff, as all sessions prior to the start of the second Trump administration have been held online since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020.

    “Again, fingers crossed,” Andrade said. “But the oddsmakers, when I last checked, were in the high 60s in favor of them not passing a continuing resolution in time. So that’s a plan.”

    The department was already facing a tight timeline to negotiate the various regulatory changes, and some are worried that the two-week delay could further complicate the effort.

    “A government shutdown throws a wrench into the rule making,” said Clare McCann, managing director of policy for the Postsecondary Education and Economics Research Center at American University. “Even assuming a shutdown is over in two weeks, as the department hopes, almost all of the Education Department’s staff will be furloughed in the meantime and unable to continue working on the draft regulations. With such a crunched timeline for finishing the rules in the first place, this makes the department’s job much more challenging.”

    If the government were to shut down, about 87 percent of the Education Department’s nearly 2,500 employees would be furloughed, according to the agency’s contingency plan. The department is planning to keep on employees who are working on the rule-making process and to carry out other provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was signed into law over the summer.

    Student aid distributions will not be paused and loan payments will still be due, but the department will cease grant-making activities and pause civil rights investigations. Grantees, though, can still access funds awarded over the summer and before Sept. 30.

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  • New Promise Programs Launch for Families Making Under $100K

    New Promise Programs Launch for Families Making Under $100K

    When Jake Winston began looking at colleges in fall 2019, he was primarily looking at public colleges in his home state of North Carolina, as he felt those would be the only institutions he could afford. He was interested in Washington & Lee University, in Virginia, due to its location—far enough for a change of scenery, but not so far he couldn’t visit home—and its rich and complex history. But he didn’t think he could afford the high price tag.

    At a presentation by admissions officials, though, he learned about the W&L Promise, which covers the full cost of tuition for all students whose families fall into a specific income bracket. Once he got his aid offers back from colleges, WLU was the obvious choice, costing him just $5,000 annually, a sum that he paid out of pocket using money he made from summer research jobs.

    “Being able to know I was going to graduate debt-free from the start allowed me to pick what I was passionate in, and that’s teaching, which is not the highest-paying role in the country,” said Winston, who now teaches seventh-grade history in Northern Virginia. “But it is what I wanted to do with my life.”

    WLU has one of the oldest tuition-guarantee programs in the country. It launched in 2014, offering free tuition to students whose families make less than $75,000 each year; now, that number has surged up to $150,000, and students whose family income is less than $75,000 also get free room and board.

    Since then, more and more colleges—especially, but not only, selective private institutions—are offering completely free tuition to students whose families fall under a certain income threshold. Nowadays, that maximum is typically $100,000 annually, an income bracket that includes about 57 percent of U.S. families as of 2024, according to an analysis by the Motley Fool. But some have expanded the offer of free tuition to those whose families make as much as $200,000, encompassing all but 16 percent of American households. (Most programs also require the families to have typical assets, and some are only open to in-state students.)

    In the past year alone, a slew of universities has announced new free tuition programs or expanded their existing programs, including Wake Forest University, Reed College, Emory University, Macalester College, Tufts University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Lasell University.

    Administrators at more than half a dozen institutions with promise programs told Inside Higher Ed that they hope that the move will attract low-income students who didn’t realize how financially accessible higher education, even at expensive institutions, can be. It’s also an effort to improve cost transparency—an area that has frequently come under scrutiny as the actual cost of college has become increasingly obscured by scholarships, aid, fees and books and other indirect costs.

    Breaking the Cost Barrier

    For many institutions offering tuition guarantees—also called promise programs—it’s more of a change in rhetoric than in actual financial aid policy.

    Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, for example, announced a program last November guaranteeing free tuition for students with family incomes under $75,000 and promising those with incomes under $100,000 wouldn’t have to take out any student loans to access a CMU education, beginning with the incoming class in fall 2025. But according to Brian Hill, the university’s associate vice provost for student financials and enrollment systems, that’s how the university had already been quietly operating since 2016.

    “In truth, it was to make sure that prospective students knew that CMU was an affordable option for them. That was the primary reason,” he said. “We’ve been saying that we met full demonstrated financial need for our students … [but] a barrier we don’t know if we’d gotten through or not is students that would look at the sticker price [of $67,020 per year] and just completely write CMU off before they even explored it.”

    The surge of these programs comes amid concerns about the growing cost of higher education and that the return on investment of a bachelor’s degree doesn’t warrant the seemingly exorbitant cost; a few institutions in the U.S. now have a sticker price upward of $100,000 a year.

    At the same time, experts argue that the price of higher education has actually gone down when accounting for inflation and the high rate of aid students generally receive. For several decades, higher education has followed a model in which institutions advertise a high cost of attendance but a significant number of students receive large scholarships. This approach helps to make higher education look like a luxury product while students and families feel like they’re getting a good deal. But that strategy has come to bite institutions in the butt, according to W. Joseph King, former president of Lyon College and a higher education consultant, as many low- and middle-income students now feel the high cost of college makes an education unattainable.

    “What this led to was almost like an arms race of rising stated tuition numbers and a fall in net tuition numbers. All sorts of groups, including the federal government, have been trying to get to numbers that are more reflective of the actual cost,” he said.

    Promise programs aim to change that narrative by showing low- and middle-income families that getting an education even at a seemingly pricey school can be achievable.

    Colleges have made other attempts to communicate that message to students and parents. That includes developing net price calculators, which often show that low-income students would be paying just a fraction of the sticker price, or announcing that their institution is able to meet all of a student’s demonstrated financial need—a number based on a federal student aid formula that determines how much a family is able to pay.

    But many families have no idea what demonstrated financial need means or are unaware of net price calculators, enrollment professionals say. Simply saying that an institution offers free tuition can be the ultimate tool for price transparency, according to Milyon Trulove, vice president and dean of admission and financial aid at Reed College, which announced plans to expand its regional promise program—currently available only to students in Oregon and Washington—to all students with family incomes under $100,000 in 2026.

    The institution also has a net price calculator, he said. But if presented with both that calculator and the promise of free tuition, the latter will immediately be meaningful to students, whereas the former won’t.

    “[Students] say, ‘This makes sense to me, today, right now … and now I can listen to all the other stuff about fit and anxiety about money is no longer in the way of me fully participating in the college admission process,’” he said.

    Along with institutions offering free tuition to any student who fits within a certain income bracket, even more institutions offer tuition guarantees to students based on grade point average or for transferring from a local community college system.

    ‘Rigorous Financial Planning’

    Most of the university officials who spoke with Inside Higher Ed said that their institution was in a very strong financial position and able to afford to support so many students because of large endowments and generous donations, including fundraising specifically aimed at increasing student aid.

    From 2016 to 2024, Carnegie Mellon, for example, increased its undergraduate financial aid budget 86 percent.

    “We truly made a massive commitment to making affordability a real thing at CMU,” said Hill. “I think we’re in a very positive position in terms of finances, but it took a lot of commitment from … executive leadership to make this a priority.”

    Wake Forest, which announced last week that it will offer free tuition to all North Carolina students with family incomes below $200,000, is one of the few schools that said that its promise program, called the North Carolina Gateway, would substantially increase the total amount of aid it gives out. President Susan Wente said that, similarly to CMU, the funds for the initiative come in large part from a massive fundraising effort that has raised over $150 million for financial aid since 2022.

    “This involved rigorous financial planning and analysis and knowing we could meet the commitment, should we announce it,” she said.

    But not every university with a promise program is leaning on massive donation campaigns. Radford University, a public institution in Virginia, was able to begin offering free tuition to all students from Virginia with incomes below $100,000 simply because of the ample amount of funding it gets from the state, according to Dannette Gomez Beane, vice president for enrollment management and strategic communication.

    Virginia tends to be generous toward higher education, Beane said, but the two regional public universities in southwest Virginia, which has the lowest college-going rate of higher education of any area in the state, receive the most funding. That’s what allowed Radford to begin its promise program, which the institution promoted heavily in the 60-mile radius around its campus, in 2024.

    “With all things higher ed and higher ed financial aid, not everything is sure, and we’re learning that this year more than ever,” she said. “I think that state funding, federal funding—if you have models that are dependent on those, you have to constantly be adjusting your models … there is that vulnerability, but we’re just gracious that we’ve had favor with the state.”

    Boosting Low-Income Enrollment

    Although many of these programs are new, those that have been around for multiple years have seen positive results. At Washington & Lee, Sally Richmond, vice president for admissions and financial aid, said that there have been massive jumps in enrollment of rural students, first-generation students and Pell-eligible students since she joined the university in 2016.

    It’s impossible to say whether those changes can be attributed specifically to the university’s promise program, she noted. But, she said, “our financial aid office, who is certainly on the front line of having these conversations along with our admissions team, speaks to the fact that this concept of the promise is the one that resonates most with our prospective students and families.”

    Reed College, similarly, saw a 25 percent increase in middle-income students in its program’s first year, during which it was only available to students from Oregon and Washington.

    Wente, Wake Forest’s president, said she is eager to see how the university’s newly announced tuition guarantee program will impact low- and middle-income enrollment.

    “As a scientist myself, we’re going to pilot this, look at its impact, look at how we can ensure that it’s really achieving what we hope in terms of offering students greater access,” she said. “In terms of the middle and lower income bands, those are the students who often don’t have as many options. So, how do we give them as many options as possible?”

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  • High tariff providers may be making medium tariff offers

    High tariff providers may be making medium tariff offers

    There’s only really one headline from this year’s UCAS cycle – and that’s about the recruitment behavior of higher-tariff providers.

    The closest analogue is 2021: the so-called “mutant algorithm” year in which higher-than-predicted A level results (arguably the first accurate and fair set of results for many years, unconstrained by any predetermined curve) meant that traditionally selective providers were contractually obligated to honour a lot more offers than expected.

    But there was no such anomaly in results this year. The cohort did do very slightly better than expected (within the limits of the system), but this was – as it should be – down to their own hard work rather than any external factor.

    The assumption has to be that the growth in numbers at selective providers (those that have traditionally used tough level three requirements as a way of admitting only those with the best results) has to be down to a change in behavior. So what has changed, and why?

    What are we looking at

    Twenty-eight days after A level results day (JCQ results day to use the technical term) isn’t quite the final day of Clearing. You can still apply for 2025 entry up until 6pm on 24 September – which, depending on where you are heading, is pretty much welcome week.

    However, JCQ+28 is the last point at which UCAS releases statistics on applications and acceptances, before we get to the End of Cycle reports through December and January. These are the points where we can get a perspective on how this round of recruitment has gone (for the sector in December, by provider in January).

    But even this isn’t a final number. Many universities and colleges have multiple undergraduate entry points – and of course not all applications go via UCAS. End of cycle UCAS statistics do include the ones that they know about (the “Record of Prior Acceptance”) but the Clearing data does not.

    Volume up

    In most recent years around 10 per cent of applicants overall have been placed via Clearing, including both “direct to Clearing” applications (where someone hasn’t made choices of course and provider on their UCAS form) and standard “Clearing” (where someone has not been accepted, or not accepted a place at their firm or assurance choice). This proportion has grown slightly over the last decade – in 2016 it was nearer 9 per cent.

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    A part of the reason for this is the introduction of the UCAS “decline your place” option, and the continued improvements in the Clearing system via the “Clearing Plus” tool that matches students with courses and providers based on interests and aptitudes. It is now easier for students to make a change to their plans – to decline a firm (and/or) insurance place even though they met the requirements, and to find another place that suits their needs. As you might guess, this has been a boon for high-tariff providers – who now find it much easier to recruit students who have exceeded results day expectations – but the benefits are wider.

    It is good news for the students in question as well – if you have done particularly well it may unlock a course or university that you wanted to go to but didn’t dare waste an application slot or firm acceptance status on. It might mean a more direct route to a career now you know more about professional requirements, a place nearer home (or further away!), a cheaper part of the country to live in (or an easier one to find term-time work in) or the uni where your friends are also heading. A lot can change in the life of an applicant between putting your form in on 15 January and getting your results in mid-August.

    An element of concern

    So the growth in acceptances at high-tariff providers is partially explained – but not entirely.

    [Full screen]

    You don’t have to spend a long time talking to admissions staff to hear that so-called high-tariff providers are now taking students with less stellar A level results in greater numbers. Making it easier to “trade up” (as the frankly unhelpful discourse would have it) is one thing, lowering the tariff is a different matter.

    The popular perception is that high-tariff providers are better. This is true in that they are better at being high-tariff providers.

    If you’ve done a few open days you will have been made aware that universities are not a homogenous lump. Even on a similarly named course, they will teach differently (more lectures, more tutorial, more blended, more hands on, more theoretical or academic), focus more on different parts of the subject, have different facilities (anything from lab kit to student support services), and even timetable differently. These are the differences that should really be driving applicant decision-making – and a high-tariff provider may not be better for a particular student (whatever their results).

    A choice of university governs a lot more of an applicant’s life than just what they’ll end up putting on their CV and who this might or might not impress – although a lot of popular commentary and ministerial statements take a more simplistic view of “undermatching”.

    Under the bonnet

    Because we get stats on a mostly daily basis, we can get a sense of when the application deals are being sealed. I’ve not plotted every day of data because honestly who has time, but here we have results day, the day after, and the Monday of the next week (traditionally the three big Clearing days) plus day 28 which rounds up most of the rest of the action.

    There’s not much Clearing data in the JCQ results day release: that that is in there is mostly from applicants domiciled in Scotland with SQA results (they get their results a week earlier, the lucky things), mature students, and overseas students. So for 18 year old entry on that day in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland you are just seeing the automatic workings of the UCAS system – where applicants got the grades on the offer they get the place.

    [Full screen]

    And there’s our first clue. The number of initial placements at high tariff providers (England, Wales, and NI domiciled applicants, 18 years old) was higher than the total number of placed applicants last year. Or indeed any year on record.

    You don’t get that by being an aspirational destination, or by being active in Clearing. You get that by lowering the offers you make. We’ll see more in the end of cycle data, but in some cases this would be lowering them by quite a lot. Higher tariff providers didn’t take a lot of students in Clearing (we’re talking about 8,000 of this subgroup in 2025, rather than 7,000 last year or 10,000 in 2019), they took a lot of students.

    Why, though?

    It wasn’t a mistake. There was no underestimation of performance, because performance wasn’t meaningfully different than in any other non-pandemic year.

    And it can’t be pure greed. The best data we have on the cost of educating students (audited, regulated, everything) is TRAC and we know from the last release that selective providers (who tend to be in TRAC groups A and B) tend to recover around 85 per cent of the costs of public funded teaching. If you lose £1,430 on each (price group D) student then if you take more of them that just adds to your deficit?

    There’s a suggestion that some universities are using home students to fill spaces that would previously have gone to (higher fee paying) international students. The thinking being that even some income is better than none, and helps to sustain capacity (departments, courses, jobs) that might otherwise be lost. However, there’s not a massive difference in the number of visas issued by the Home Office, which suggests that there will be a similar number of international students this year as last (still down on 2023 and earlier, mind).

    Any capacity backfilling, in other words, would have happened last year. And there’s been a sharp uptick in the proportion of international students heading to big name destinations this cycle: numbers at selective providers are now at a level above the golden age of the mid 2010s.

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    The extra students, then, are simply extra students over last year. Growth in numbers, pure and simple. Very few universities have the finances to substantially invest in capacity (staff, estates) – so we have to assume that this means larger classes, less individual attention, more competition for resources, and a tighter accommodation market.

    The most able, and best connected, students will flourish. They pretty much always will – you could lock them in a darkened room for three years and they’d still get a good degree and a good job. It’s the rise in traditionally selective providers recruiting a substantially greater volume of students who have excellent potential but who need extra support and more opportunities to build networks and build confidence, that worries me. I hope these providers are ready to rise to what will be a new and substantial challenge.

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  • more international students citing quality and reputation as key factors in decision making

    more international students citing quality and reputation as key factors in decision making

    As the global education landscape evolves, understanding what motivates international students has never been more critical. NCUK’s annual student survey series, Transforming Student Futures, provides essential insights into the aspirations of approximately 1,000 international students from 88 countries participating in NCUK’s in-country pathway programmes worldwide.

    The latest findings reveal clear patterns in student priorities that demand attention from educators, policymakers, and universities. 

    Maintaining quality and reputation is key

    Quality of education stands as the decisive factor for international students, with 69.9% of respondents selecting it as their primary motivation for pursuing overseas qualifications, up from 58% in 2024. Career-focused motivations follow closely, with over half of students (56.4%) motivated by career development opportunities, including increased employability and monetary benefits.
     
    This emphasis on educational excellence is particularly pronounced among students from Nigeria, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Peru, where quality ranks as the top motivation. In Kenya, quality shares the top position with career development, while in Ghana, it ties with gaining new knowledge as the primary driver.

    Interestingly, students from China present a unique pattern, with gaining new knowledge emerging as their main motivation rather than quality alone, suggesting different educational priorities for NCUK students across source markets.

    The rise of TNE and changing learning preferences

    Traditional learning models continue to dominate student preferences, with 66% favouring fully on-campus learning experiences. However, the survey indicates growing consideration for online provision as an increasingly viable alternative, reflecting evolving attitudes toward flexible education delivery.
     
    The year-on-year increases in demand for full online learning (up from 10% to 22%), full on-campus learning at a local institution in the students home country (up from 16% to 32%) and full on-campus learning but half taught at a branch campus in the student’s home country and half taught at a main campus overseas (up from 14% to 20%) all  signal a move toward flexibility.

    This shift aligns with the recent growth of TNE, and NCUK’s in-country model and diverse qualification offerings cater to this demand, enabling students to access global education without relocating immediately.

    Is it worth us considering whether, as a sector, we sometimes place too much emphasis on policy change?

    The high confidence level in NCUK pathways – with 94% of students believing these programs will enhance their career prospects (a 5% year-on-year increase) – demonstrates strong programme satisfaction and perceived value among participants.
     
    Policy changes: The US coming up Trumps but overall, NCUK students unaffected by policy changes

    In 2025, 52% of respondents expressed concern about UK visa restrictions, up from 38% in 2024, reflecting recent tightening of post-study work policies. Conversely, the USA saw a 12% rise in positive sentiment (to 29%) due to perceived stability in immigration rules, while Australia’s appeal dipped 8% (to 22%) amid cost-of-living concerns.
     
    These shifts highlight a nuanced landscape: students from Ghana and Pakistan are more deterred by UK policy changes, while Nigerian students remain optimistic about the USA. However, the overall message here is that NCUK students’ decision making does not seem significantly influenced by policy changes, with 80% of respondents choosing the UK as their preferred destination, despite the above findings.

    Is it worth us considering whether, as a sector, we sometimes place too much emphasis on policy change?

    Implications for the future
     
    The emphasis on quality demands continued investment in academic excellence and institutional reputation to meet rising student expectations, particularly in competitive source markets like Nigeria. And further, expanding TNE and hybrid learning options will cater to students seeking quality education with flexibility, reducing reliance on traditional study-abroad models.

    NCUK’s in-country pathway programmes demonstrate strong alignment with student needs and aspirations, offering the academic preparation, university access to high-ranking institutions, and career development support that international students prioritise. As the education sector continues to evolve, maintaining focus on quality, flexibility, and comprehensive student support will remain essential for meeting the diverse and changing needs of international students.

    About the author: Andy Howells is the Chief Marketing Officer for NCUK, a leading global pathway provider. He has worked in higher education for over 15 years in senior marketing and student recruitment roles at Royal Holloway, University of London, the University of Southampton and most recently, Universities UK International (UUKi).

    Andy has won several awards, including ‘Best Issues and Crisis Campaign’ at the PR Week Global awards in 2022 for UUKi’s We Are Together campaign, and ‘Marketing Campaign of the Year’ at the PIEoneer Awards in 2023 for UUKi’s Twin for Hope campaign. In 2023, Andy led the relaunch of the UK higher education sectors, #WeAreInternational campaign.

    Andy is a father of two young children and his claim to fame is delivering his second child himself, in his car, in a supermarket car park during the first weeks of Covid lockdowns! 

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  • Making PD meaningful in today’s classrooms

    Making PD meaningful in today’s classrooms

    Key points:

    As a classroom teacher and district leader with over 26 years of experience, I’ve attended countless professional development (PD) sessions. Some were transformative, others forgettable. But one thing has remained constant: the need for PD that inspires, equips, and connects educators. Research shows that effective PD focuses on instructional practice and connects to both classroom materials and real- world contexts.

    I began my teaching career in 1999 through an alternative certification program, eager to learn and grow. That enthusiasm hasn’t waned–I still consider myself a lifelong learner. But over time, I realized that not all PD is created equal. Too often, sessions felt like a checkbox exercise, with educators asking, “Why do I have to be here?” instead of “How can I grow from this?”

    Here are some of my favorite PD resources and experiences:

    edWeb

    edWeb is free to join, and once you’re in, you can dive into as many sessions as you want. The service offers a live calendar of events or on-demand webinars covering a range of topics. Plus, the webinars come with CE certificates, which are approved for teacher re-licensure in states like New York, Massachusetts, Texas, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Utah, and Nevada.

    You can go deeper into the state-specific options with an interactive map. I also love the community aspect of the platform, as you can connect with peers and learn from experts on so many topics for all preK-12 educators.

    Career Connect
    This summer, I attended the Discovery Education Summer of Learning Series at the BMW facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina, for a day-long professional learning event focused on workforce readiness and preparing students for evolving career landscapes. It was an energizing day being surrounded by passionate educators. One standout resource we dove into more deeply is Career Connect by Discovery Education. Career Connect is within Discovery Education Experience and is available to all educators in South Carolina by the Department of Education.

    This is quickly becoming a priority tool in our district. With early access in the spring, we’ve integrated it across grade levels–from elementary STEM classrooms to our Career Center. The platform offers students live interactions with professionals in various fields, making career exploration both engaging and real. I witnessed this firsthand during a virtual visit with an engineer from Charlotte, N.C., whose insights captivated our students and sparked meaningful conversations about future possibilities.

    Professional Development Hub
    The ASCD + ISTE professional learning hub offers sessions on innovative approaches and tools to design and implement standards-aligned curriculum. Each session is led by educators, authors, researchers, and practitioners who are experts in professional learning. Schools and districts receive a needs assessment, so you know the learning is tailored to what educators really need and want.

    Tips for Meaningful PD
    With over 26 years of experience as a classroom teacher and district leader, I have participated in my fair share of professional learning opportunities. I like to joke that my career began in the late 1900s, but professional development sessions from those first few years of teaching now do feel like they were from a century ago compared to the possibilities presented to teachers and leaders today.

    Over these decades I’ve seen a lot of good, and bad, sessions. Here are my top tips to make PD actually engaging:

    • Choose PD that aligns with your goals. Seek out sessions that connect directly to your teaching practice or leadership role.
    • Engage with a community. Learning alongside passionate educators makes a huge difference. The Summer of Learning event reminded me how energizing it is to be surrounded by people who lift you up.
    • Explore tech tools that extend learning. Platforms like Career Connect and others aren’t just add-ons–they’re gateways to deeper engagement and real-world relevance.

    Professional development should be a “want to,” not a “have to.” To get there, though, the PD needs to be thoughtfully designed and purpose-driven. These resources above reignited my passion for learning and reminded me of the power of connection–between educators, students, and the world beyond the classroom.

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  • 3 risk factors making states vulnerable to federal funding cuts

    3 risk factors making states vulnerable to federal funding cuts

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    A dozen states and their school districts are more vulnerable to federal funding rollbacks than others in K-12 because of their higher proportions of high-need districts and students living in poverty, according to an analysis from nonprofit group Education Resource Strategies.

    Another risk factor for the 12 states is their higher dependency on federal funding: 16% of Alaska’s total education revenue, for example, came from the federal government in 2021-22. Nationally, 13.7% of public school funding came from the federal government that school year, according to USA Facts.

    According to ERS, there are 12 states that meet all three risk factors: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. 

    In addition to the three risk factors reviewed by ERS, states and public schools are facing myriad other funding pressures, including federal fiscal delays and cutbacks, the end of COVID-19 emergency aid and competition from school choice options. 

    Although most funding for public schools comes from local and state coffers, reductions in federal revenue could lead to school-level impacts, including staff reductions or program cancellations, ERS said.

    3 risk factors

    In its analysis, ERS considered three risk factors that would make states more vulnerable to federal funding cuts. The first is a higher reliance on federal funds as a percentage of total education revenue. 

    While federal funding has an impact on all states, those where federal funds exceed 10% of total K-12 revenue could be more vulnerable, ERS analysts said.

    The analysis considered all federal funding directed to public K-12 districts, including Medicaid reimbursements and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. The analysis did not consider federal pandemic emergency funding.

    The second risk factor is the percentage of districts in a state serving students living in poverty. 

    Districts serving a high proportion of students living in poverty rely the most on federal funding, as federal grants support low income students and districts. 

    The ERS analysis said states that have more than 30% of districts defined as “high-need” means that many districts would be impacted by reductions or disruptions in federal funding. A high-need district is one in which more than 20% of students live in poverty.

    In Louisiana, for example, 81% of the state’s 69 public school districts qualify as high-need, which could be a challenge for Louisiana should Congress reduce federal funding for FY 2026, ERS said.

    The third risk factor is the percentage of students attending a high-need district. The analysis measured this as a risk factor if more than 20% of a state’s students attend a high-need district. For those states, many families would be impacted by any federal budget reductions, even if a family is not low income.

    ERS points out, however, that even if a state has a lower number of high-need districts, those few districts could be serving a large number of students. For example, only 12% of New York’s districts are considered high-need, but because New York City — a high-need district — serves more than 1 million students, 52% of the state’s students are served by a high-need district.

    An ‘unprecedented level of uncertainty’

    “It’s important for stakeholders to understand the challenges that schools and districts might face if federal funding cuts do happen, and to recognize that the impact will be different” depending on the risk factors, said Betty Chang, managing partner at ERS.

    “Districts are facing a pretty unprecedented level of uncertainty when it comes to their financial forecast,” Chang added. 

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  • Careers services can help students avoid making decisions based on AI fears

    Careers services can help students avoid making decisions based on AI fears

    How students use AI tools to improve their chances of landing a job has been central to the debate around AI and career advice and guidance. But there has been little discussion about AI’s impact on students’ decision making about which jobs and sectors they might enter.

    Jisc has recently published two studies that shine light on this area. Prospects at Jisc’s Early Careers Survey is an annual report that charts the career aspirations and experiences of more than 4,000 students and graduates over the previous 12 months. For the first time, the survey’s dominant theme was the normalisation of the use of AI tools and the influence that discourse around AI is having on career decision making. And the impact of AI on employability was also a major concern of Jisc’s Student Perceptions of AI Report 2025, based on in-depth discussions with over 170 students across FE and HE.

    Nerves jangling

    The rapid advancements in AI raise concerns about its long-term impact, the jobs it might affect, and the skills needed to compete in a jobs market shaped by AI. These uncertainties can leave students and graduates feeling anxious and unsure about their future career prospects.

    Important career decisions are already being made based on perceptions of how AI may change work. The Early Careers Survey found that one in ten students had already changed their career path because of AI.

    Plans were mainly altered because students feared that their chosen career was at risk of automation, anticipating fewer roles in certain areas and some jobs becoming phased out entirely. Areas such as coding, graphic design, legal, data science, film and art were frequently mentioned, with creative jobs seen as more likely to become obsolete.

    However, it is important not to carried away on a wave of pessimism. Respondents were also pivoting to future-proof their careers. Many students see huge potential in AI, opting for careers that make use of the new technology or those that AI has helped create.

    But whether students see AI as an opportunity or a threat, the role of university careers and employability teams is the same in both cases. How do we support students in making informed decisions that are right for them?

    From static to electricity

    In today’s AI-driven landscape, careers services must evolve to meet a new kind of uncertainty. Unlike previous transitions, students now face automation anxiety, career paralysis, and fears of job displacement. This demands a shift away from static, one-size-fits-all advice toward more personalised, future-focused guidance.

    What’s different is the speed and complexity of change. Students are not only reacting to perceived risks but also actively exploring AI-enhanced roles. Careers practitioners should respond by embedding AI literacy, encouraging critical evaluation of AI-generated advice, and collaborating with employers to help students understand the evolving world of work.

    Equity must remain central. Not all students have equal access to digital tools or confidence in using them. Guidance must be inclusive, accessible, and responsive to diverse needs and aspirations.

    Calls to action should involve supporting students in developing adaptability, digital fluency, and human-centred skills like creativity and communication. Promote exploration over avoidance, and values-based decision-making over fear, helping students align career choices with what matters most to them.

    Ultimately, careers professionals are not here to predict the future, but to empower all students and early career professionals to shape it with confidence, curiosity, and resilience.

    On the balance beam

    This isn’t the first time that university employability teams have had to support students through change, anxiety, uncertainty or even decision paralysis when it comes to career planning, but the driver is certainly new. Through this uncertainty and transition, students and graduates need guidance from everyone who supports them, in education and the workplace.

    Collaborating with industry leaders and employers is key to ensuring students understand the AI-enhanced labour market, the way work is changing and that relevant skills are developed. Embedding AI literacy in the curriculum helps students develop familiarity and understand the opportunities as well as limitations. Jisc has launched an AI Literacy Curriculum for Teaching and Learning Staff to support this process.

    And promoting a balanced approach to career research and planning is important. The Early Careers Survey found almost a fifth of respondents are using generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot as a source of careers advice, and the majority (84 per cent) found them helpful.

    While careers and employability staff welcome the greater reach and impact AI enables, particularly in challenging times for the HE sector, colleagues at an AGCAS event were clear to emphasise the continued necessity for human connection, describing AI as “augmenting our service, not replacing it.”

    We need to ensure that students understand how to use AI tools effectively, spot when the information provided is outdated or incorrect, and combine them with other resources to ensure they get a balanced and fully rounded picture.

    Face-to-face interaction – with educators, employers and careers professionals – provides context and personalised feedback and discussion. A focus on developing essential human skills such as creativity, critical thinking and communication remains central to learning. After all, AI doesn’t just stand for artificial intelligence. It also means authentic interaction, the foundation upon which the employability experience is built.

    Guiding students through AI-driven change requires balanced, informed career planning. Careers services should embed AI literacy, collaborate with employers, and increase face-to-face support that builds human skills like creativity and communication. Less emphasis should be placed on one-size-fits-all advice and static labour market forecasting. Instead, the focus should be on active, student-centred approaches. Authentic interaction remains key to helping students navigate uncertainty with confidence and clarity.

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  • UCAS applications and offer making by June deadline, 2025

    UCAS applications and offer making by June deadline, 2025

    The UCAS 30 June application deadline is the last point an applicant can apply outside of clearing.

    Though most applications (particularly from UK 18 year olds) happen by the January deadline, the June figures allow for a complete analysis of application behaviour in the UCAS main scheme.

    The number of 18 year old UK applicants has reached a record high of 328,390 (up 2.2 per cent on last year) – with the total number of applicants at 665,070 (up 1.3 per cent on last year).

    Application rates

    As always it is salutary to compare the often-pushed narrative that young people are being tempted away from expensive/poor-value/woke (delete as per your personal preference) higher education with the actuality that numbers are rising. You could even be tempted to imagine what the application rates might be like in a sector with a realistic student maintenance offer.

    I mention application rates because this is what declinist commentators will seize on. For UK domiciled 18 year old applicants, the application rate is 41.20 – down from 41.80 per cent last year. This fall is visible across most measures of deprivation: in England, for example, every IMD quintile but quintile 5 (the least disadvantaged) sees a falling application rate.

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    In part, this could be a function of another year where the dominance of higher tariff providers in driving applications has increased: higher tariff providers disproportionately inspire applications from (and recruit) better off young people.

    This chart shows the number of applications to each of three tariff groups. For UK 18 year olds the default is fast becoming an application to a high tariff provider. We don’t (unfortunately) get application numbers by deprivation and tariff group.

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    These number of placed students is likely to rise too: UCAS and Ofqual have suggested that there are 28,000 places available in Clearing this year.

    Offer rates

    One innovation in this year’s release is information on offer rates – the proportion of applications that result in an offer being made. We get three years of data, which demonstrate that offer rates are rising across the sector – and that (as you may expect) high tariff providers are less likely to make offers than lower tariff providers. The growth among high tariff providers is driven both by rising application numbers and a rising offer rate.

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    For believers of the other recruitment myth (that universities load up on international students and are less keen to take even very able home students) we get a timely corrective. It turns out that 98.5 per cent of UK 18 year old applicants have an offer, compared with 89.7 per cent of international students.

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    Subjects

    Finally, it’s always fascinating to look at applications by subject area – a plot by CAH1 groups shows a sharp rise in the popularity of business, subjects allied to medicine, engineering, and law: with an intriguing drop in applications to computing subjects. There may be a generative AI effect on computing applications – the rise of “vibe coding” and other uses of agents in software development may mean that the attraction of learning to programme computers properly may be waning.

    That’s the best explanation I have – and it is curious that law (a domain where predictions of AI tools eating entry level roles are ten a penny) doesn’t appear to be experiencing a similar phenomenon.

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