Major student source markets for UK universities are seeing declines in applications in the latest admissions cycle sparking concerns about enrolment numbers in the next intake.
Speaking at The PIE Live Europe in London on March 19, university representatives detailed that postgraduate applications from India, Nigeria, and to a smaller extent China, are down.
More institutions are paying closer attention to application numbers earlier in the cycle, speakers said.
A survey of 51 BUILA members found that the majority had seen declines in applications for September, with the Indian masters level particularly hard hit.
Last year, the UK government announced that from January 1 2024, masters taught students would no longer be permitted to bring family dependants with them and also hiked NHS surcharge fees.
The government is expecting the net migration figures to drop by some 140,000 people as a result of the policy change, Harry Anderson deputy director of Policy and Global Engagement at Universities UK International, said.
Nigeria’s postgraduate market is also down, according to the flash survey, while the US is looking somewhat better.
“India will continue to be a hugely important market,” said Catriona McCarthy, chair of BUILA and director for Global Engagement at Ulster University.
However, she noted that Indian students are “acutely attuned” to media reports, particularly with speculation around the Graduate Route and visa processing delays.
Head of Global Insights and Market Development at University of East Anglia, Syed Nooh, said that the sector is facing declines, with the “big five markets driving that”.
“However, the growth [we have seen at UEA] in the last few years has been quite managed so the decline we are seeing in not that rapid,” he said, adding that the institution is using 2022 as its benchmark.
For University of Glasgow, 2024 is the first time in a decade the university has not hit or exceeded its targets, Shonagh Maak, head of International Stakeholder Engagement, noted.
“The decline came as a surprise,” she said, adding that the rate of slowdown was only obvious quite late in the cycle.
“One of the things for this year is, as an institution, as a sector, we are watching this much more closely much earlier in the cycle,” Maak noted.
“We had one of our strongest undergraduate performing years”
“One of the things that jars me a little bit is actually last year we had one of our strongest undergraduate performing years, which has been lost in some of the messaging and around postgraduate.”
It’s not all bad news, director of Partnerships and Stakeholder Engagement at IDP, Rachel MacSween, continued.
“There’s quite a lot of crossover with where Australia is seeing growth from and where the UK is seeing growth from,” she said.
“We are seeing growth at postgraduate level from China again, Hong Kong, Pakistan and Vietnam. But the biggest growth market for us at IDP at postgraduate is in Indonesia.
“At undergraduate level, the biggest growth that we’re seeing for the UK is coming from Bangladesh and really encouraging signs and growth from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Taiwan, China and UAE.
“It’s not all bad news but the major spending markets like Nigeria and India, unfortunately the decline is pretty pronounced.”
