On #Brexit and Universities

The EU referendum on 23 June is a timely prompt to look at what impact the EU has on universities.

There’s no doubt where Universities UK – the sector-wide representative group – sits. “The UK’s membership of the European Union makes our outstanding universities even stronger, which in turn benefits everyone in the UK.”. So that’ll be a preference for In, I guess.

No, it isn't Eurovision ...

The underlying argument is one about mobility: through schemes like ERASMUS, staff and students in UK universities get a chance to work and study at other EU universities, and vice versa. And this leads to a better education, better research, and more capable people.

The EU funds such schemes, and helps to make them happen: it is clear that there are not similar exchanges from UK universities to non-EU countries. The closest thing to such a scheme beyond the EU is the junior year abroad programme that many US universities operate, with some UK universities very happy to bring such students in for a semester or a year. But it’s one way traffic: there aren’t many UK students spend a year at an American university, and where it happens – such as American Studies at UEA – it is linked to a specific degree programme, and arises because the University has worked hard to make it so.

There’s a financial angle too. The EU funds research across its member states, often for projects done in collaboration between EU universities - and UK universities are active in this. And students from other EU nations study at the UK’s universities, on the same terms as home students. (This gives rise to some oddities: Scottish universities are free for Scottish students and non UK EU students, but students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland are liable to pay fees …)

If we left the EU, other things being equal, the research funding would stop, and EU students would be like any other overseas student – and pay the same fees. So what do UK universities currently get from these EU sources?

HESA data lets us find out. Using data for 2014-15, it is possible to calculate for each university how much they get in EU research funding (from finance table 5); and how much they get in tuition fees from EU students (finance table 4 and student table 11a). And this in turn lets you calculate what proportion of their overall income comes from EU sources.

You’ll be pleased to know that I’ve done the maths for you. Across the UK as a whole 4.7% of funding in 2014-15 came from EU sources, with research funding accounting for slightly more of the whole than tuition fees. Of the tuition fees, two thirds is accounted for by full-time undergraduate fees.

The picture varies greatly: while a few universities get less than 1% of their income from EU sources, for others it is a noticeable amount. Here’s the top 10:

What is immediately obvious is the London bias, and also the absence of the big-money research universities. None of the top 10 have medical schools, which drives a lot of UK research money. And of these 10, eight get most of their EU income via tuition fees. But for all of them, the risk of Brexit is clear: 10% of income is a lot to lose, and recovering it is uncertain.

Does this mean that universities are right to campaign for the EU? Money is uncertain, and in truth we simply don’t know what would happen, especially in the medium to long term, if the UK left the EU. To my mind, the better reasons are those of mobility and opportunity, and they are good and noble reasons. The Universities UK campaign seems to me to be based on hope and optimism about making a better tomorrow. I’m all in favour of that.

The Groves of Academe

The world of higher education owes a lot to ancient Greece – the very term academic derives from the name of the place where Plato taught.  And the continuing saga around Greece’s economic and political travails look like a path to exit from the Euro and possibly the EU. If this happened, what would be the impact on UK HE?

First, some numbers: non-UK EU students account for just over 5% of the UK total student population (about 125k out of just shy of 2.3m in 2013-14, according to HESA).  Greece contributes the fourth highest number – just over 10.5k, about 8% of the non-UK EU students in the UK.

Data from HESA

The other top domiciles are Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, and Cyprus, which tells me that in Greece, Ireland and Cyprus going to the UK is a significant cultural pattern (think of the different populations of those countries.)

A decent number of these students are undergraduates.  Greece in 2013-14 had the third highest number of new undergraduates – just over 5000.  As EU citizens, undergraduates are eligible for student loans form the SLC in the same way as UK students, and this enables the continuation of what has been a pattern of EU students studying in the UK for their first degrees.

Data from HESA again

The same countries form the top 6 – again showing that there’s quite a habit of studying in the UK in Greece, Ireland and Cyprus.

So what would Greek EU exit mean?  Hypothetically, of course.

Without access to SLC funding, it’s unlikely that as many Greek students would travel to the UK to study. 5000 new undergraduates is the intake of a large university, so the impact would be felt over the years as fewer students applied to UK universities.

And there’d be immediate questions to address.  The politics make this interesting.  There aren’t any rules or procedures for a country leaving the EU, and my guess is that the politics of such a change would be disorderly and dramatic rather than with a planned transition.  So, just for a change, there wouldn’t be clear policy from the UK government.

And universities are bound by rules and regulations on this. See, for example, the University of Exeter, which has a very clear policy on fee status for EU accession candidates. If a country stopped being a member of the EU, then the natural consequence is that the students from that country would become, in terms of fee status, overseas. Universities can choose to set whatever fees they like, and so could continue to charge the home fee for such students, but since students would become ineligible for state funding, current Greek students would in any case face immediate financial uncertainty and pressure.

Visa status is a further uncertainty. Would Greek students need tier 4 visas? It would be tricky for the current government to be relaxed about this. My understanding is that the direction of UKVI policy is that overseas students who need a visa extension would be required to leave the UK to apply for the extension.  So overall my guess is that Greek students would need tier 4 visas; and would be asked to leave the UK in order to apply for such visas from outside. What chance that many would do this and come back?

This is obviously speculation – Greece hasn’t (yet) left the Euro and the EU, and maybe they won’t. But it might be worth universities checking how many students they have from Greece – if there’s a student support and a financial policy question coming, knowing the scale of it in advance might be wise.

The people have spoken ...

And I’m not sure that many expected exactly the result we’ve got. There’s lots of things to be said about the detailed HE policy implications of the election result, and I might well say some of them in due course. But for now I just want to set out a few thoughts about the bigger political context – a small majority, Europe, Scotland and austerity.

Nicholson St, Edinburgh. Spot the Union Jack. #indyref2 on its way.

Firstly, the small majority. It won’t take many rebellious Conservative MPs to create a problem for the government. One or two voting against something won’t make a difference – the opposition doesn’t coalesce around any obvious point of view for that to be the case – but 20-30 rebels could well defeat the government. So there’ll be careful management of parliamentary business and it may well be that more contentious issues are shelved if they can be. Some university issues definitely count as contentious – 2010 Millbank riots anybody? – so HE issues that need parliamentary discussion or votes might not be flavour of the month.

Secondly, Europe. One of the ways that the Prime Minister will keep his MPs happy is to progress EU negotiations quickly in the hope that by 2017 there’s a good deal enabling a positive referendum campaign to stay within the EU. The problem is that what counts a good deal depends very much on where you’re sitting, and the benefits of Europe that accrue to HE – student mobility, research funding – might not look so beneficial if you’re worried about public spending and migration. So there could be a bit of planning blight around things European which might be tricky.

Thirdly, Scotland. I’ve been spending some time in Edinburgh recently and it’s obvious that something has changed in how lots of people in Scotland think and feel ab out the UK, its politics and government. The post-referendum response by the UK government was a fudge, and contributed to yesterday's overwhelming SNP victory in Scotland. If the issue is taken seriously, then pro-union views might yet find a way to keep Scotland within the UK, but I wouldn’t bet on it. And as HE is a devolved matter, any discussions around constitutional change or devolution will have an impact. No matter which part of the UK you’re in, this will affect you.

And finally, money. Even before the election campaign we knew that there were substantial further cuts planned to government spending. In England, BIS will not be immune; and the consequential impact upon budgets in devolved administrations (even if we assume that the Barnett formula will be maintained) will be real too. So the question of the sustainability of student funding (fees, grants, depending on where you are) and the amount of research funding will become pressing issues. But, see above, contentious issues might have to be shelved because of parliamentary problems. So research funding is likely to get clobbered.

Some of this would be true no matter what the outcome of the election, but it does seem to me that parliamentary politics hasn’t stopped being interesting for higher education yet...