Student numbers down but profits return
THE University of Plymouth has returned to profit but has seen its income fall by £13million as it faces a decline in student numbers.
The institution’s newly published accounts show it has made an aftertax profit of £4.1million for 2019/20, after posting a loss of £17million a year earlier.
That loss was partly explained by the university having to pay out £21.9million in “restructuring costs” associated with redundancy payments and pension costs for 566 staff who left during 2018 and 2019.
This figure turned out to be more than £6million more than the university previously reported. A further 44 staff left in 2020, costing an additional £167,000.
Nevertheless the university is now back in the black, but it has seen its income drop from £241.5million to £228million. The university’s accounts show this is partly because it has suffered a £6.9million drop in tuition fees, which the university says “reflects the decrease in student numbers resulting from the demographic dip and competition within the sector to attract and retain new students”.
The university said its strategy to focus on quality might “impact undergraduate student numbers” whilst looking to grow both the postgraduate and international student total.
Nevertheless, undergraduates continue to form the majority of the student body, and this is reflected in undergraduate income, making up 89.7% of tuition fee income, up from 85.4% a year earlier.
Postgraduate income has increased slightly by £100,000 compared to the prior year. But educational contract income continues to fall, from £9.2millon in 2018/19 to £2.3million in 2019/20, but this is partly because health qualifications such as nursing are being moved to a tuition fee-based funding scheme.
The university has about 35,000 students, but only about 18,000 of them are in Plymouth, the rest are throughout the UK and even abroad. It has about 2,500 staff.
Writing in the university’s Annual Report and Financial Statements, a joint message from Vice-Chancellor and chief executive Judith Petts and Colin Drummond, Pro-Chancellor and chair of the Board of Governors, said the global pandemic had brought “huge uncertainty.”