Top universities sweep up largest share of students in record year
Burdened by inflated grades, the young are now saddled with a university sector not fit for purpose
‘They do need to prepare for this wave of students. If any are not on the ball, the student experience could suffer as a result’
RECORD numbers of students have been accepted at Russell Group universities this autumn, official figures show, amid concerns that student experience could suffer.
This year has seen stiff competition for places at the country’s leading universities after 44.8 per cent of A-level students were awarded A or A*.
Figures published by Ucas, the university admissions service, showed that 432,430 had accepted a place at a university yesterday, a 4 per cent increase on this point last year.
But an analysis of the data shows that the Russell Group – known as “higher tariff ” universities as they have the highest entry requirements – has swept up the largest share of students, with 163,100 applicants accepting places yesterday, up by 14 per cent on last year.
Yesterday students who had a place to study medicine were told they would be handed £10,000 if they agreed to move to another medical school.
The “brokerage” programme was announced by the Medical Schools Council after it became clear that some universities did not have enough space to accommodate all the students who had met the terms of their offers.
Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said that while applications to universities had increased overall this year, it was the leading institutions that had accepted the most students.
“The cake has got bigger, but an even bigger slice is going to the Russell Groups,” Mr Hillman said. “Some people were worried the lower tariff institutions would collapse. That’s not happened as there are more students to go around, but we have seen the Russell Groups increase their share. They do need to prepare for this wave of students. If any are not on the ball, the student experience could suffer as a result.”
The large increase in Russell Group admissions compared with 135,260 students going to “medium tariff ” universities, a 2 per cent increase on last year, and 135,260 at “lower tariff ” universities, a 2 per cent decrease on last year.
It comes amid warnings from the Government that higher education institutions should return to face-to-face teaching unless there are “unprecedented” reasons not to.
Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, said the Government expected all universities to move back to face-to-face teaching.
“Our guidance is clear, our direction is clear and we do expect all universities, unless there’s unprecedented reasons, to be moving back to the situation of actually delivering lessons, lectures, face to face,” he told Sky News.
Asked if refunds should be given if that was not the case, Mr Williamson said: “I think universities have got to sort of stand up their offer to their own students. I think that they have the flexibility and the ability to deliver face-to-face lectures, and expect them to be delivering face-toface lectures. I think if universities are not delivering, not delivering what students expect, then actually they shouldn’t be charging the full fees.”
Normally there are still thousands of places available at Russell Group universities in clearing, but by midday yesterday only half the 24 institutions were advertising places. Universities that would usually recruit hundreds of students through clearing – including Birmingham, Bristol, Durham, Manchester and Leeds – had no places at all by noon.
The Department for Education intervened last week to create extra places for medical students after it became clear that more applicants would meet their offers than the cap on numbers set by the Government.
Medical schools made offers last autumn before the Government said that exams would be cancelled, meaning they made more offers than they had places on the basis that some students would not get high enough grades.
Dr Tim Bradshaw, chief executive of the Russell Group, said: “There has been unprecedented demand for places this year, but over the next few weeks Russell Group universities will be working hard to accommodate as many students as possible.”
He said students could expect most seminars, small group classes and lab work to be taught in person but warned that “an element of digital learning” would continue.
A-level results day is as much a Summer Season ritual as Wimbledon or Henley Regatta. Picture desks demand the timehonoured shots of photogenic girls jumping for joy from the school steps. Like clockwork, Jeremy Clarkson reminds his Twitter followers that, despite his C and two Us, he’s still a multimillionaire “with a Bentley and many friends”. And this year, of course, comes surging grade inflation.
Nearly half of teacher-predicted A-levels were awarded an A or A* after exams were cancelled again – almost double the proportion before the pandemic. Grade inflation, and concern about it, is nothing new, but edging 50 per cent suggests a hyperinflation reminiscent of Weimar Germany. And it’s hardly a glowing endorsement for schools if, for two years running, examinees outperformed all previous students when they were away from their teachers for months on end.
Faced with the fiasco, education leaders participate in a Peter Pan-style fiction. (“Clap your hands if you believe in fairies, don’t let Tinker Bell die.”) The head of Ofqual, the exam regulator, says the “holistic” approach of teacher assessment might be preferable to the snapshot picture of exams. Gavin Williamson prefers not to talk about it at all. “Any debate about the system we’ve used this year should not undermine or question the value of the grades students will be getting,” he huffed yesterday morning.
No one wants to trash the achievements of young people who’ve suffered two years of disruption. But it is neither kind nor constructive to pretend that the system has served them well this year. The best students will struggle to differentiate themselves amid a galaxy of A*s. Misleadingly high grades could shunt others onto over-challenging university courses where they will end up dropping out. Grade inflation isn’t cost-free, because grades send out a signal. When that signal is wrong, it undermines the integrity of all results. If everyone has an A, no one does.
From grade inflation to home working, the pandemic has boosted existing trends – sadly it looks certain to perpetuate Britain’s toxic higher education bubble, the product of Tony Blair’s misguided crusade to send half of school leavers to university. The Times recently reported a surge in young people taking “panic Masters” degrees to make themselves stand out in an uncertain jobs market. And who can blame them? In The Case Against Education, the economist Bryan Caplan warns of precisely this “arms race of credentialism”; many jobs that never needed degrees now do, catapulting young people into a qualifications’ free-for-all. Your second-rate PHD trumps my second-rate Masters.
The fraudster Charles Ponzi, in his eponymous swindle, tricked new arrivals into paying for early investors’ profits, alongside his own. Perhaps it’s a stretch to describe higher education as an out-and-out Ponzi scheme. But there are similarities. Both are selfperpetuating systems; surviving only by expanding the base of their pyramid. Tuition fees are universities’ primary means of servicing existing debts, funding basic spending and the vanity projects institutions use to differentiate themselves in a saturated market. A constant supply of students is crucial – one reason for the recent explosion of unconditional offers.
Both depend on big lies – in the case of higher education, persuading successive generations that they need to attend university when they don’t, and promising glittering futures which may never materialise. At 23 institutions, graduates earn less, on average, than people who never went to university at all. An estimated three quarters of graduates will never fully repay their loans, with the remainder “forgiven” (ie, covered by the taxpayer), yet second-rate universities continue to churn out graduates in such volume that the economy cannot absorb them – often while offering little in return.
The system lacks any accountability, or mechanism for penalising poor performance. Many universities have continued to charge the same eyewatering fees and rents despite offering no face-to-face contact throughout the pandemic. Vice-chancellors, property speculators and university administrators have continued to fill their coffers. Where the Education Secretary was right yesterday was in declaring this a terrible deal; even immoral. The university bubble isn’t just a raw cost to taxpayers – and nor should we only view university in these terms. It is also a tragedy of missed opportunities for many young people.
The triggers for the bubble are obvious; unpicking the terrible incentives which created it will be tougher. The explosion of universities has brought money into electorally sensitive areas, including Red Wall constituencies, and helps massage the unemployment numbers. As Caplan noted, the credentialism arms race has permeated the labour market, too.
If the Government is serious about tackling this problem head-on, it could start by removing the degree requirement from public sector jobs like nursing, policing, even social work. Universities should no longer be considered “too big to fail”. It will take resolve and political courage but in the long run we will all be richer for it.