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Russell Group universities struggling to fill places through clearing, figures show
Russell Group universities are struggling to fill places through clearing, figures show, following the lifting of the cap on student numbers.
Over 4,000 courses still have vacancies at 18 out of 24 of the country’s leading institutions, ahead of A-level results day on Thursday.
Traditionally sought after undergraduate courses such as Law, Engineering, English Literature and History are still available at Russell Group universities, many of which have embarked on ambitious expansion plans in recent years in order to take on more students.
Less than a week before A-level results day, Bristol University and King’s College London both had 100 courses with empty places. Meanwhile Leeds had 524 places going spare, and Liverpool had 591.
The lifting of student number controls in England in 2015 means that universities can now recruit as many undergraduates as they see fit.
But the move has led to accusations that they now act like commercial ventures, seeking to maximise their revenue by recruiting as many students as possible.
“Universities are like every other business – when they are successful they tend to want to grow,” said Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute.
“Russell Group universities have arguably benefitted the most from the lifting of the cap on student numbers. Some were keen to grow before the removal of the cap but there was no clear mechanism for them to do so.”
He warned that expansion is a “double edged sword”, adding: “If they take on lots of students who in the cold light of day don’t thrive at university, then that will fairly quickly show in their drop-out rates.
“They are also conflicted as most are under pressure from regulator to take more students on from tougher backgrounds. There comes a point when if you expand too rapidly it will start to affect your reputation in other ways.”
A dip in applications has left even top ranking institutions scrabbling to fill places, as a decline in the population of 18-year-olds has led to applications to British universities falling by 1.6 per cent.
While the entry requirement for each course are advertised online, universities are usually prepared to accept students with A-level grades well below their official offer during the clearing process.
Figures from Ucas, the university admissions service, show the overall number of British applicants of all ages down by 3.4 per cent.
It represents the lowest number of UK applicants since the Government raised tuition fees to £9,000-a-year in 2012.
Dr Christina Edgar, director of student recruitment and admissions at Sheffield University, said there so many prestigious courses on offer through that students can afford to "shop around".
Sheffield, a member of the Russell Group, has roughly doubled the number of students it has admitted through clearing every year since 2015.
Ms Edgar said that lifting the cap on student numbers "definitely" heightened competition between universities to attract more students.
Many have built new state-of-the-art facilities to allow for more student recruits, with Sheffield opening an £83 million new building last year with more lecture theatres, laboratories and study space.
"It was part of our longer term plan to accommodate more students," she said, adding: "You will see building works going on at many of our competitors".
Andrew Carr, the admissions manager at Bishop Grosseteste University said: “Clearing used to be like a car boot sale, where you can get some good stuff but not always the best quality stuffy.
“Now it’s like the Boxing Day sales – you can get exactly what you would have got a few weeks earlier. But if you leave it too late you only get the XXLs and the XXSs so it is important to get in there early.”
He said that Bishop Grosseteste has a “long history” of students applying through clearing, since it is considered to be a “lower tariff” institution and typically accepts students with lower A-level grades than others.
In recent years, clearing has “really ramped up quite a lot”, he said, with most of the Russell Group universities now investing heavily in attracting students this way.
Still up for grabs: examples of courses available at Russell Group universities via clearing
- Bristol University: 100 courses available including Chemistry, Classics, French and History of Art
- Exeter: 209 courses available including Biochemistry, Engineering, History and Medical Sciences
- King’s College London : 100 courses available including English, Neuroscience and Philosophy
- York university: 199 courses available including Biology, Economics, Archaeology and Politics
- Leeds University: 524 courses available including Modern Languages, Biology and Geography