University denies claim it made halls profit during lockdown

THE University of Birmingham managed to make £16.5 million profit from its halls last year – despite the start of the pandemic.

But bosses have claimed the newly-released data from stats agency HESA is ‘misleading’ as it does not include capital investment into the student accommodation.

The University of Birmingham made the most profit of any uni in the 2019/20 financial year according to the figures – bringing in £16.5 million more than they spent

on halls, writes The Tab student newspaper.

The HESA stats showed it had a residence income of £29,309,000 and a residence expenditure of £12,729,000, leaving a profit of £16,580,000.

However, the University of Birmingham told the Post the figures did not take into account ‘the significant capital investment’ made on student accommodation.

It says nearly £60 million has been spent developing new halls of residence in the last six years, while it also offered full rebates to students when they weren’t using the accommodation.

Edinburgh was second on the HESA list with £12.6 million profit, while Durham was third with more than £12 million.

Yet despite the balance sheet bonanza, nearly every university saw the amount of money it made from halls drop.

And that was even before many they started giving rent rebates in the autumn of 2020.

While some universities managed to make a handsome profit, others took a huge hit. Exeter made a loss of nearly £15 million as did Sheffield. King’s College London which lost nearly £13 million.

A University of Birmingham spokesperson said: “The University of Birmingham provides high quality accommodation to over 5,000 students. We are one of the largest university owned accommodation estates in the country.

“Unlike many universities, the University of Birmingham manages and maintains our own student accommodation internally.

“The data presented from HESA is misleading in that it does not take into consideration the significant capital investment we have made to maintain the quality of our student accommodation.

“Annually we spend in excess of £3 million in improvement projects, while over the past six years alone nearly £60 million has been spent developing new halls of residence.

“This expenditure has not be accounted for in the HESA data, and any surplus that is ultimately achieved is re-invested back into the University’s facilities.

“During the past eighteen months the University has also been proactive to minimise the financial impact of the pandemic on its students, in particular its residential students who have been offered full rent rebates when they have not been able to use their accommodation.”