Thousands of jobs at risk in UK universities amid drop in international student enrolment

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Cardiff: For more than 140 years, Cardiff University in the United Kingdom has taught some of the brightest students from around the world, including multiple heads of state and Nobel Prize winners.

But the prominent Welsh institution is now among over 80 universities in Britain that are currently restructuring or looking to reduce staff numbers.

Last month, it announced plans to cut 400 full-time jobs – about 7 per cent of all its roles – and close several courses like ancient history, nursing, music, and modern languages and translation.

A consultation on the proposed changes will run for 90 days, with final plans for approval to be considered in June.

This comes as universities in the UK have been facing a funding crisis, with many struggling with rising costs amid a dramatic fall in the number of high fee-paying international students choosing to study there.

Some university heads have warned that 10,000 jobs could be lost in higher education in the UK.

According to the government’s most recent figures, a quarter of the total UK student population in 2023 were from overseas – just over 750,000. More than 100,000 students came from India and China.

But early data showed that this academic year from September 2024 to August this year, study visas have fallen by more than 30 per cent. Postgraduate enrolment is also down by 40 per cent.

Critics blame falling international student numbers on anti-immigration government rhetoric and new visa restrictions introduced in January last year, which limit foreign students’ right to work and the visas on offer to their relatives.

Domestic issues have also plagued university funding.

Despite surging inflation and costs for institutions, tuition fees in the UK have been frozen since 2017 at US$11,500 per academic year for most students.

While fees will rise by 3 per cent in the next academic year in September, average prices have gone up by 30 per cent since 2017.

This has led some academics, like public economics professor Nicholas Barr from the London School of Economics, to call the present system “unsustainable”.

“There has to be some more direct taxpayer support for teaching to go back to the old arrangement, where teaching was financed through a mix of tuition fees and taxpayer support,” he told CNA.

“If universities are consistently under-financed, then it’s true that some might go to the wall, but … a bigger problem is, the quality of what we offer our students will decline.”