Damned Lies: Student Participation Rates and HE Funding

[nmg]

Well, the previous post inspired some interesting discussion, as did andrewducker's related poll. ahnlak asked for the source of some of the figures that I'd quoted, and this got me looking. I'd wanted to be able to give some more detailed figures initially, but was surprised (given the current funding debate) that they weren't that easy to find.

Using the data on the number of graduating students from the Higher Education Statistics Agency and population demographic data from Office of National Statistics, I put together the following table:

Graduating UK domiciled FT students (first degree) by year

Year	Students	21 year olds	% of 21 year olds
1994/1995	194,275	733,300	26.4%
1995/1996	205,805	708,100	28.9%
1996/1997	206,081	685,000	30.1%
1997/1998	206,389	659,700	31.3%
1998/1999	210,176	669,200	31.4%
1999/2000	212,340	711,800	29.8%
2000/2001	215,425	745,300	28.9%
2001/2002	216,230	749,400	28.8%
2002/2003	220,905	727,400	30.2%
2003/2004	229,250	749,800	30.6%
2004/2005	237,735	787,100	30.1%
2005/2006	241,100	826,800	29.2%
2006/2007	244,195	830,100	29.4%
2007/2008	256,830	836,100	30.6%
2008/2009	253,720	855,600	29.6%

Sources: HESA qualifications obtained, ONS population pyramid

There are several assumptions in these figures:

• I only consider full-time students graduating from their first degree. This is what people typically think of when they think of university students, and full-time students greatly outnumber part-time.
• HESA don't publish enrolment figures, only graduation, so this underestimates participation by assuming that no students drop out. That said, the drop out rate should be largely constant.
• In order to map graduate numbers onto the total population, I've assumed that students all enrol at age 18 and graduate at age 21. Given that the UK population is growing, that bachelors degrees are a minimum of three years, and that the majority of students enrol at age 18 or older, this systematically underestimates participation.

There are some interesting observations that we can make from this data (and the supporting data in the sources above):

• The number of UK part-time students is typically less than 12% of the total number of UK students each year, and the proportion remains roughly constant.
• Over the period from 1994/1995 to 2008/2009, the proportion of full-time overseas and EU students (compared to the total number of full-time students) studying for a first degree increased from 8% to 15%. This is a direct consequence of the reduction in per capita funding for UK students (see below), and is the main reason that UK universities survived the expansion of the 1980s and 1990s.
• The number of full-time UK students graduating with a first degree from a UK university increased by roughly 25% between 1997 and 2008. However, the proportion of graduating 21 year olds has stayed roughly constant at 30+/-1%

Of course, after I'd put together these figures, I then found that BIS (as DIUS) had published the data I'd wanted in a report (DIUS SFR02/2009) on a corner of the DCSF website. Not where I would have looked, and probably not where the report will be after the new lot finish obliterating all traces of the old lot. If you want to take a copy of the report (here) do it now before it disappears.

This report estimates participation differently; it takes enrolment rather than graduation (the Higher Education Initial Participation Rate), and does not make the simplifying assumptions about the ages of students that I do. Consequently, my figures systematically overestimate the population who could become students, and underestimate the population who are students (in part because I only look at FT students).

On the other hand, my intuitions about retention and drop-out are broadly correct; the drop-out rate remains static at roughly 8+/-1% over the period 1999/2000-2006/2007.

The report gives FT HEIPRs that vary as follows:

Year	FT HEIPR
1999/2000	34%
2000/2001	34%
2001/2002	35%
2002/2003	36%
2003/2004	35%
2004/2005	34%
2005/2006	37%
2006/2007	34%

Not a great deal of variation, I think you'll agree. The HEIPR for FT/PT combined - which is what New Labour wanted to rise to 50% - stayed in the 39-42% region in the same period. Hardly the increase that we're being lead to believe by our new masters, or that is being raised as a justification for cuts on certain right-of-centre on-line forums. The big increase in student numbers happened between 1980 and 1997, not under New Labour (various sources, including Gombrich and Greenaway and Haynes [mirror] - and you can just see the tail end of this expansion in the first table above).

The current debate on HE funding and the nigh-inevitability of cuts assumes that there are gross savings to be had. The problem with this is that the big expansion in the 1980s and 1990s was largely unfunded; student numbers went up and total funding stayed the same, or to put it a different way, per capita student funding went down. This post-1980 expansion was bankrolled by the increase in overseas students noted above. Greenaway and Haynes (p. F152) give a drop of 50% in real terms per capita funding during 1980-1999, while this briefing by Universities UK to the House of Lords (para 4 in the PDF) tells a similar story for 1989-2010, but then goes on to note that i) our spending on HE as a percentage of GDP is less than the OECD average (1.3% compared to an average of 1.5%) and ii) more than £1 billion had already (as of February 2010) been cut from spending on HE committed in the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review. The new government added an extra £200 million to that, and now we're being told to prepare for cuts of up to 25%.

If UK HE survives this, whatever is left will be unrecognisable.

Comments

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

For administrative and support staff:

1. There's the holiday issue: we're more flexible as to when we can take time off but we are still not supposed to take leave during term time.
2. Academic staff with more time on their hands come to us with innovative ideas, or for help in writing grant applications, or to sort out a problem they've put up with for 6 months because they are teaching.
3. Term Time Only. Universities cut costs by employing some support staff (as well as demonstrators/teachers) for nine months rather than 12.
4. Rollout and testing. New hardware, new software, new procedures, end of year accounts and the rest all happen from June to September. Then there's the exam result period when lots of admin staff help and the degree week with support staff working in the ceremonies and receptions.

Two year degrees have space issues. Not so much for lectures (the rooms sit unused for a lot of the summer APART from the aforementioned conferences) but examinations and practical classes. We rationalised our practical classes a number of years ago and in the first year run two all day sessions: these take a whole day to set up and clear down (class runs from 9-5, staff work with some flexibility). Management see laboratories sitting empty for half the week: I think it's fairly certain that staff are going to be asked to split into early and late shifts. Not many people want to do the late shift due to the car-parking issue. Then there's the extra equipment required, where do you store it, etc. Which begs the question: why do practical science anyway?

(I worked a Monday/Tuesday afternoon practical for a couple of years. Being microbial in nature I often had to come in on a Sunday to put in an overnight culture and my then manager would ask if it was strictly necessary. Yes, the clue is in the name. They had to pay me overtime, see. Lack of equipment also meant that we had to clear down, wash and sterilise for the next day but I was lucky that the demonstrators helped me clear and one of the wash up ladies was prepared to stay late).

We're on summer break and I'm finding myself doing longer days than I did during term time!