Middle universities will be squeezed hard

The UK's changing demographic, as well as fees, has contributed to the decline in student numbers. But it still creates trouble for middling universities, says Jonathan Wolff
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'… and the third generation goes snowboarding'
'… and the third generation goes snowboarding'. Photograph: Richard Price/Getty Images

There were almost 724,000 babies born in England and Wales in 2011, up from 595,000 in 2001. This is a staggering increase. Except that if we go back a further 10 years, to 1991, the number was around 700,000. The birthrate fell for 10 years, and then for the next 10 climbed back up, and beyond.

That large 1991 cohort was last year's university graduating class. Since then, we have been experiencing a gradual fall in the number of 18-year-olds in the UK population. For all the disputes about whether fees have caused a decline in applications to UK universities, it seems to have been overlooked that the demographics alone should have caused a fall. If, as some claim, home applicant numbers have held steady, something remarkable is happening. A slightly higher proportion of the cohort is applying to university than before the introduction of fees. Simple arithmetic.

But, more importantly, these demographics ought to be bringing the higher education sector out in a cold sweat. Over the next decade we are likely to have substantially declining numbers of applications, with a big over-supply of places. And then what? Will applications rise again? Perhaps. But the pattern of applications may well change significantly.

As is well known, the fall in birth rate is the result of families having fewer children, and having them later in life. However, recent immigrant families often play by different rules, and larger families are more common. But what will happen when these children reach an age to apply for universities? Will they want to go? And if so, what will they want to study?

Predicting the future is a mug's game, but there are some cultural universals. Commenting on patterns of immigration in the US, Jack Donaghy, in the TV comedy 30 Rock, puts it this way: "The first generation works their fingers to the bone. Second generation goes to college and innovates new ideas. The third generation goes snowboarding and takes improv classes."

As blogger Kyrie O'Connor pointed out, this analysis has been around a long time. American founding father John Adams, in a letter of 1780, wrote: "I must study politics and war, that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."

Thankfully, providing for a family offers different challenges to founding a nation, but the same broad principles apply. Generalising recklessly, the first generation just tries to get through; the second builds up financial security; the third has the freedom to experiment.

These demographics point to growing demand for vocational courses from 2020 onwards, over and above shifts caused by the chill winds of financial realism. Subjects such as law, medicine, pharmacy, computer science, electrical engineering and business studies can expect ever more interest.

And what does the future hold for those of us toiling away in the arts and humanities? It was kind of John Adams to put philosophy alongside mathematics as a second-generation subject, but time will tell if he was right. On the Adams principle, it could be 40 years before demand for tapestry and porcelain picks up again.

Although there is trouble ahead, some universities could do very well from these changes. Those that do best will be universities that welcome a diversity of UK applicants, offer a spread of vocational subjects, and cater to a large local population, especially in the south and east where the populations will rise fastest. In other words, many of the new universities are very well placed to meet the brave new world, if only they can hold out for the next few years. And as always, the most prestigious universities will continue to be able to fill their places, provided they put the effort in. But those universities in the middle might well find themselves squeezed. And to mix our lemon-flavoured political metaphors, squeezed until the pips squeak.


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