30.11.12
The Vice Chancellor has slammed government policy as “completely mad”, after Leeds was forced to begin the year with 500 unfilled places.
Intake for 2012 had been estimated at 5,000 students, but Vice Chancellor Michael Arthur revealed this week that Leeds “ended up just over 500 students short.”
Speaking at a question and answer session on Monday, the former chair of the Russell Group explained how Leeds had “lost a lot of student numbers” as a result of the Government’s ‘Core and Margin’ reforms.
Under the rules, universities are allocated a certain number of places for students each year, but those charging more than £7,500 are forced to hand back a certain proportion of these places or suffer a large fine.
The only way Leeds is legally allowed to plug these gaps is by recruiting unlimited numbers of students with at least AAB at A-level. However, with fewer applicants achieving top grades in the summer, universities have struggled to fill places.
“We undershot our student numbers because we didn’t want to pay the fine. In retrospect, we could have taken more,” stated Mr Arthur, adding, “There were lots of unintended consequences to the reforms last year, and we did warn the minister about this. I personally thought this was a completely mad policy.”
“Far fewer students with AAB have come into the system this year. The question is: where are all these students? No one knows the answer to that. They are almost definitely not in other universities”.
Russell Group universities began the academic year with a record 11,500 vacancies. Prof. Sir Howard Newby, the Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool University, released the figures in a statement criticising the shortfall as an “unintended consequence” of government action. Nationally, it is estimated that the number of undergraduates beginning courses in 2012 fell by 57,000.
Ministers have said that the threshold for unlimited student numbers will be ABB next year, in the hope that the problem will be resolved. However, Sir Howard Newby expressed scepticism: “we believe, in the Russell Group certainly, we could have a further round of empty places next year.”
Words: Sabrina Poole and David Pegna