The Office for Students (OfS) has published new polling on students’ perceptions of their providers’ response to financial challenges.
I say new – it was actually carried out last April – but regardless of the delay, given the scale of job losses in the sector over the past year, we are very much in no shit Sherlock territory when it comes to the headlines.
83 per cent of those polled thought that cost-cutting measures had changed the experience they felt they’d been promised – often through larger class sizes than expected, greater use of online learning, or reduced access to academic resources and student support.
Around a quarter reported changes in support services, including services/funding offered via the SU, IT and technical support, or academic support services.
Around two in five perceived impacts on access to academic resources and the quality of teaching, and a reduction in extracurricular activities, and 46 per cent of those polled expressed concern about the potential closure of their course or department – and nearly half were unaware of their options if that happened.
An accompanying blog post remixes material from the new strategy, linking Ambitious, Vigilant, Collaborative and Vocal to the findings.
Students might well ask whether “a little bit quicker than glacial” should be added to the list.
They noticed
Savanta conducted an online survey of 1,256 students studying at OfS-regulated universities and colleges in England, with fieldwork running 8-15 April 2025. The sample was designed with quotas on age, sex and ethnicity to match HESA data and the OfS Access and Participation dashboard, with all reported subgroup differences statistically significant at the 95 per cent confidence level and a margin of error of +/- 3 per cent.
Just over half (52 per cent) of respondents reported noticing cost-cutting measures at their institution, with 56 per cent aware of perceived financial risks. Awareness was significantly stratified by student characteristics – older students (25+) were more likely than younger students to notice measures (58 per cent vs 48 per cent), as were postgraduates compared to undergraduates (60 per cent vs 44 per cent).
Male students were also significantly more likely to be aware of financial risks than female students (67 per cent vs 47 per cent). Those already aware of financial risks were significantly more likely to notice measures than those not aware (62 per cent compared to 38 per cent).
Students reported becoming aware of changes through multiple channels. Some received formal communications from their providers:
The university management board sent out emails explaining various cost-cutting measures. (Undergraduate)
Others learned through staff:
My teachers told me about lay-offs. (Undergraduate)
Many noticed changes through direct observation – reduced opening hours, cuts to society funding, larger classes:
I noticed reduced hours of opening on the music studios and the library. (Undergraduate)
I noticed the cuts in extracurricular because of my societies I was involved in, they got less funding from the university, so many activities that took place over the past few years are not happening anymore. (Postgraduate)
For some, the changes were impossible to miss:
It was obvious given that the previous master’s class had five students, and this one has over 50. Social media platforms also discussed it. (Postgraduate)
Others pieced together the picture from multiple sources:
I noticed some of these changes firsthand, such as the longer waiting times for counselling services and the reduced number of extracurricular activities. However, I was also informed about some of the cost-cutting measures through the university’s student union newsletter and social media channels, which reported on changes to IT support services and careers advising.” (Postgraduate)
Impacts and differences
Among students who noticed cost-cutting measures, the most commonly reported impacts related to staffing – 44 per cent observed changes to staff availability and capacity, while 40 per cent reported increased class sizes, with postgraduates significantly more likely to report the latter (44 per cent vs 35 per cent of undergraduates).
There are fewer staff and bigger classroom sizes, and there are lots of cutbacks on IT equipment. (Postgraduate)
Beyond the academic core, 38 per cent noticed changes to financial support availability, and 93 per cent of those noticing any measures highlighted changes to support services.
Postgraduates were significantly more likely to notice changes to careers and employability services (24 per cent vs 15 per cent) and IT/technical support (29 per cent vs 20 per cent). Those aware of financial risks were more attuned to “indirect” measures such as changes to placements (28 per cent vs 15 per cent) and academic and pastoral support (24 per cent vs 14 per cent).
The perceived impact was predominantly negative – 39 per cent cited a negative impact on academic resource quality, 35 per cent on extracurricular activities, and 34 per cent on teaching quality. The report notes that some of these findings were “difficult to interpret and/or implausible”, suggesting respondents may not always have been clear what the question was asking.
A striking 83 per cent of students reported noticing a gap between the experience they believed had been promised at enrolment and the reality – with postgraduates feeling this more acutely (90 per cent vs 77 per cent of undergraduates).
The report notes an important distinction between institutional promises and student expectations – though the question referred to institutional commitments, responses mixed unmet personal expectations with unfulfilled promises.
Class sizes featured prominently:
I was promised a class of 15 but now there are 25 students per class. (Undergraduate)
Classes are much larger than expected and some courses and/or resources they promised were either cut or moved online due to budget cuts. (Undergraduate)
The shift to online delivery was a recurring theme:
When I enrolled, I was promised access to regular in-person lectures and state-of-the-art facilities. However, due to the budget cuts, many of my lectures were moved online. (Postgraduate)
Many lectures were moved online permanently after the pandemic even though we were back on campus. (Postgraduate)
Support and resources also fell short of expectations:
The support I get as a student has reduced compared to what I was told I would get when I enrolled. (Undergraduate)
They promised to provide us with all the learning equipment in school, but now I have to bring my own laptops. (Undergraduate)
My university experience has differed quite a bit from what was initially promised, mainly because of some minor cost-cutting measures. When I enrolled, they promised modern facilities and extensive student support. There is limited access to academic support, and modern facilities like labs and student spaces have seen budget cuts. (Postgraduate)
Financial pressures compounded the sense of broken promises:
Tuition fees increased slightly, but alongside living expenses and unexpected costs, it’s a lot more than I anticipated when enrolling. (Undergraduate)
Prices have gone up for food and accommodation, and unexpected fees for items like printing. (Undergraduate)
The consequences for student decisions are notable – a quarter (25 per cent) said they were more likely to consider dropping out, 36 per cent were considering transferring, and 24 per cent considering deferring.
Postgraduates were more likely to consider transferring than undergraduates (43 per cent vs 30 per cent), as were minority ethnic students compared to white students (41 per cent vs 33 per cent), and male students compared to female students (41 per cent vs 32 per cent).
Awareness of financial risks significantly amplified these inclinations – 29 per cent of those aware were considering dropping out compared to 19 per cent of those unaware, and 43 per cent were considering transferring compared to 29 per cent.
Preparedness and support
Students were more likely to be unaware of what would happen should their course close than aware (48 per cent vs 44 per cent), with this lack of awareness particularly pronounced among undergraduates (53 per cent) compared to postgraduates (43 per cent), and among females (54 per cent vs 40 per cent of males).
A majority (56 per cent) were unaware of their provider’s published student protection plans – rising to 68 per cent among undergraduates and 72 per cent among those not aware of financial risks. Males reported higher awareness of student protection plans than females (45 per cent vs 30 per cent).
Concern about potential course or department closure sat at 46 per cent overall, with higher levels among postgraduates (59 per cent vs 34 per cent of undergraduates), those aged 25+ (64 per cent vs 36 per cent of 18-24 year olds), male students (51 per cent vs 42 per cent), and minority ethnic students (53 per cent vs 42 per cent).
Subject differences were notable – engineering and technology students were most likely to be concerned (64 per cent vs 46 per cent average), while those studying subjects allied to medicine were among the most unconcerned (66 per cent vs 52 per cent average).
When asked what support they would expect in a closure scenario, 61 per cent anticipated help transferring to another institution and 60 per cent expected support to complete their course. Clear guidance about available options was anticipated by 51 per cent.
Notably, those unaware of financial risks had higher expectations of support than those who were aware – 71 per cent of those unaware expected transfer support compared to 53 per cent of those aware, and 66 per cent expected course completion support compared to 55 per cent. Females consistently had higher expectations than males across all support measures.
On priorities for what providers should protect, 56 per cent said quality of teaching, followed by financial support options (47 per cent), student support services (47 per cent), and academic and pastoral support (39 per cent). Female and white students were more likely to prioritise teaching quality (59 per cent vs 52 per cent for male and minority ethnic students respectively).
Minority ethnic students were distinctive in being equally likely to prioritise financial support options as teaching quality (51 per cent and 52 per cent) – the only demographic subgroup where this was the case. Those unaware of financial risks were consistently more likely to say each aspect should be prioritised than those who were aware.
Financial hares and promises tortoises
One way to read this – especially when it’s read in conjunction with the polling OfS published last year on awareness of rights – is that there is a material risk that to achieve savings, providers have been engaged in widespread breach of contract, effectively depending on students not understanding or feeling able to exercise their rights to pull off the changes. The respective risks have been weighed.
The student on the Clapham Omnibus might both pose that as a hypothesis, and then ask what OfS has done about that serious risk to the student interest. I expect they’d find the relative focus on phonecalls to VC on their financial sustainability with occasional opinion-polled snapshots of the sort here a disturbing comparison for a “student, not provider” interests regulator.
It’s never unhelpful to have this sort of stuff written down – and if OfS feels it needs to prove (as with its reasonable adjustments and student rights research) that what student leaders have been telling it through panels and its “student debrief” events is true via polling, so be it.
But notwithstanding the “jam tomorrow” in the blog on what will now be done with the results, there are important questions surrounding priorities, pace and the idea of the student interest during a period of significant cuts.
I could go back further than this, but a Susan Lapworth board paper from 2019 (then Director of Regulation, now outgoing CEO) identified almost identical concerns – and acknowledged that the regulator’s existing tools were insufficient to address them.
The paper noted that “students are not clear about what they are buying, in terms of quality, contact time, support, and so on” and that “students’ consumer protection rights are not enforced when what they have been promised, in terms of quality, contact time, support, and so on, is not delivered.”
It explicitly framed the outcomes the OfS should be seeking in terms of student expectations being met – that teaching quality, contact time, academic support, learning resources and financial support should all be “appropriate and as they had expected.” Six years later, 83 per cent of students report a gap between what they believed they had been promised and the reality.
The 2019 paper also raised concerns about the burden of enforcement falling on individual students, questioning “whether a model that relies primarily on individual students challenging a provider for a breach of contract places a burden on students in an undesirable way.” It acknowledged that “the contractual relationship between students and providers is unequal” and that “it is not easy for students to identify instances where they have not received the service they were promised and to seek redress.”
The paper proposed developing new work to address the failings that appears never to have manifested – and the 2025 survey finds a majority of students unaware of student protection plans, and significant proportions now considering dropping out, transferring or deferring as a direct consequence of the gap between expectation and experience.
Promises, promises
Even if we put our fingers in our ears over the pandemic, if forward to 2024 and 2025, John Blake’s work on “the student interest” was surfacing identical themes. In a speech to the SUs Membership Services Conference in August 2024, he acknowledged that OfS still has “challenges delivering that centrality of student interest” and that “students have not always felt the confidence in our regulation that they should.” He was explicit about what students were telling him:
They tell us they are not getting the teaching hours they were promised, they tell us their work is not marked and support offered in a timely fashion, they tell us they don’t have the time resources and opportunities to get involved in the extracurricular activities so prominently featured in the prospectus and crucially, students tell us frequently that if they are unhappy about any of these things too often, their university or college does not respond speedily and effectively.
Research then published by OfS in February 2025 reinforced the findings – 28 per cent of undergraduates felt contact hours had been insufficient, 32 per cent had issues with how their course was taught, and 40 per cent said financial support was one of the three biggest influences on their success.
On both teaching and learning and accommodation, mental health support, and the cost of living, students reported consistent shortfalls. Yet the research also highlighted that students feel powerless to seek redress when promises are broken:
Students are not really given consumers rights, as seen by Covid year students who want money back. If you are given a false promise… there should be a way to complain… but [there] is not really. (Female, 18, further education student, YouGov focus group)
It is much more difficult to complain, and essentially impossible to claim a refund. (Female, 20, higher education student, YouGov focus group)
I have a right to get what I was expecting when I signed up for the degree… This means having teaching provision in line with what was advertised. (Female, 20, higher education student, YouGov focus group)
The 2025 Savanta survey – along with the work it out in December on student awareness of rights – puts numbers to this picture. 83 per cent noticing a gap between promise and reality, a majority unaware of student protection plans, and significant proportions considering dropping out, transferring or deferring. The regulator has known what the problems are for some time.
Surprise, surprise
OfS’ own financial sustainability reporting makes clear that the sector’s response to financial pressure is directly affecting students. Its May 2025 report documented a third consecutive year of declining surpluses and liquidity, with modelling suggesting that without mitigating action, up to 200 providers could be in deficit by 2027-28.
Roundtable discussions with finance directors revealed how providers were responding – providers acknowledged they had “a limited ability to continue to cut costs and maintain value for money for students”, with some having to consider “course closures” and “rationalisation”.
The report also noted that “students appear to be less prepared for higher education than previously”, resulting in “increasing attrition rates and the need for greater ongoing pastoral support” – support that “often has significant cost implications, requiring specialist trained staff resource.”
Last March, students told OfS exactly what the survey would later find. OfS it was “at this very early stage of the project” to understand the impact of financial challenges on students, and wanted student “insight and advice” to “shape up the things that we might look at.”
Libraries had been “cut down” with “reduced hours” – with one student noting they were “unable to use the building after 5pm including the library” meaning “students on placement are heavily affected.” There had been a “reduction in support services and support staff”, with “staffing being pared back to the bare minimum” and classes being cancelled outright.
The impact on remaining staff was palpable – “less passionate than they used to be, some of the cuts impacting their morale” – resulting in “delay in responding to student queries” and “customer service not as good for students.” Students reported a “reduction in tests for neurodivergent students”, changes to “extension and deferral policies” meaning students were “no longer able to get extensions and deferrals”, and disruptive “changes in supervisors.”
One student simply noted their “course is now totally different to when I came.” Perhaps most tellingly, students said they were “unable to raise issues” because “staff saying that it’s out of their hands.”
OfS promised that “your input today will be used to shape our approach to protecting students in the face of University and college cutbacks” and that:
“this isn’t just an exercise that we will do now and think is really interesting… we will be looking at these and seeing what we can do and we will feedback what we’ve done at a future debrief event.
You might have thought that almost a year on, another student event on consumer rights would have been a good time to feedback on what was done. Not so much.
Students on the call were told that OfS would be working on some “real steps” towards meaningfully strengthening student protections – a consultation on changes to the regulatory framework in Easter.
With time to feed in and the usual months of delay between consultation close and publication, plus some time to make changes, we’re probably looking at 2028.
Worse – even on issues OfS has previously been clear about – attendees got vague. Asked whether students were entitled to refunds over strike action, the answer was:
I’m going to not answer that right now because you may know that there is a test case in the courts, by UCL students, about this very issue. Um, so I’m going to wait for the outcome of that.
Can we imagine Arif Ahmed giving a similar response in the context of Sussex’s judicial review of its fines last year? We cannot.
I have written a lot of articles on these issues since OfS’ inception. Every so often OfS announces progress, an intention to act, a new way to frame the issues or whatever. Now and again, I get optimistic. But real action has been thin – there’s only so many broken promises before it’s reasonable to conclude that nothing will ever change.
The time that students really do need protection is not when the sun is shining – it’s when the cuts are on. It is very difficult to avoid the conclusion that OfS is waiting for the financial sustainability horse to fully bolt before it even gets close to closing the student protection stable door.