Increased tuition fees do not cause increased participation

Tuition fees are back on the political agenda, big time. Arguably a significant component in the unexpected relative success of the Labour Party at the 2017 General Election, there are now calls by senior Ministers for a ‘national debate’ on the issue: see, for instance, Damian Green’s speech to the Bright Blue think tank on the weekend.

One aspect of this which is worth examining is the connection between fees and access: on the one hand there us the fear that debt will put people off university (and hinder their subsequent life-chances); on the other there is the evidence that participation by students from less advantaged backgrounds has grown since the introduction of higher tuition fees in 2012. I've seen it argued - by people including a Vice-Chancellor of a UK university - that fees have helped with this process.

But of course, correlation does not imply causality. And because higher education is a devolved matter, there’s a simple experiment which can shed light on the question about whether fees encourage participation.

Scottish domiciled students pay no tuition fees if they attend Scottish universities. If they attend universities in England they pay the normal home rate – that is, £9,000. HESA data lets us see whether more Scottish students attended universities in England after fees were increased in 2012, which they should if tuition fees encouraged greater participation.

Here’s the data. It shows the number of undergraduate students attending universities in England from each of the four UK nations: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (NI). The data covers the years 2008-09 to 2015-16: that is, four years under the £3k tuition fee regime and four years under the £9k regime. The number of English students is several orders of magnitude higher than those from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, so I’ve used two vertical axes. The left had axis show student numbers from Wales, Scotland and NI; the right hand axis shows students from England.

Data from HESA Student data, table N

The chart shows that the number of English students at English universities grew over the eight years, from about 780,000 to 925,000. The number of Welsh and Northern Irish students at English Universities also grew, from 15,000 to 22,000 in the case of Wales, and from just shy of 8,000 to just over 9,000 in the case of Northern Ireland.

The number of Scottish students at English universities did not grow. 4,840 Scottish students attended English universities in 2008-09; 4,255 attended in 2015-16.  And just to be clear, there isn’t a peculiar effect of declining number of eligible Scottish students: the number of Scottish students attending Scottish universities grew from about 84,000 to about 94,000 over the same period.

So it seems that tuition fees do not cause increased participation. The growth in English students can be explained by the availability of places: the cap on recruitment was removed in the couple of years following 2012, giving universities an incentive to recruit as many students as they wished. But if students could study in their home country for free, as in the case of Scotland, they were immune to the charms and marketing persuasions of English universities.

So when the debate plays out, be careful to spot when correlation (growth in student numbers in England) elides into claims of causation. The evidence is that tuition fees do not cause a growth in student numbers.

Four nations

One of my most rewarding professional duties is acting as Programme Lead for the AUA's Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Administration, Management and Leadership.

Its the time of year for updating programme materials, and its clear that we need to give more guidance around the diverging higher education systems of the four nations. To that end, I've drafted - for comment by you, dear reader - a one page summary of some of the critical differences. You can find it on the resources page of my website.

This is the sort of thing which is made much better by criticism, and so I'd be very grateful for any feedback you might have. Is it accurate? What important differences are missing? How could it be better presented? and so on. If you'd like to, either leave comments on this post, or email them to me: hugh@hughjonesconsulting.co.uk. I'd be very grateful!

Thank you!

The national interest(s)

The UK has four separate national higher education policies. It’s a devolved matter, so the governments in Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh set the policies in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland independently of policies determined by BIS in London for England. But it is also the case that there’s a single higher education system in the UK – at least when viewed from the perspectives of staff, students and research funders. Staff move freely between the different nations; there’s plenty of student mobility between nations, and research funders look for the best research, which often spans the UK’s internal borders. So there’s two contrary facts on the go at the same time.

Universities Wales, the local franchise of UUK in Wales, has today published a manifesto which speaks to the tension which arises because of this. The manifesto, which aims to help shape party policies in May 2016’s assembly elections, sets out six ‘fundamental commitments’ for universities in Wales. Let’s take a look.

The first of these fundamental commitments addresses access to maintenance funding for students: “Provide means-tested maintenance grants for Welsh students from foundation through to postgraduate level to ensure that everyone in Wales has access to the life changing opportunities provided through higher education.”

There’s two things going on here. Firstly, a recognition that access to money to live on whilst studying is a major factor in widening access and enabling students to succeed. Future fee repayments are much less of an inhibiting factor than cash for food, rent and clothes. Secondly, the range of the funding – undergraduates are not the only students, and with postgraduate loans available in England, Welsh universities and Welsh students are disadvantaged if similar funding is not available.

The second commitment addresses affordability: “Prioritise university funding towards the policies that both provide opportunities to access an internationally competitive, high quality university education and deliver economic and social benefits for individuals, government and businesses in Wales.”

At the moment the Welsh Government provides a direct fee subsidy for all Welsh-domiciled (ie, living in Wales before they went to university) students, no matter where they attend university. So, Welsh government HE money is being spent to pay fees at universities in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland (although in practical terms the vast majority of Welsh students who study outside Wales do so in England.) And the plain truth is that this commitment places great pressure on other Welsh HE priorities. The Diamond Commission is currently looking at HE funding issues (and is due to report after the election – where have we heard that before?), and Universities Wales is aiming to help change policy. Welsh Labour has previously made a clear anti-fee commitment, so all policy help will be important. And it’s clearly tied in with the maintenance grants point in the first ‘fundamental commitment’: give something good to students before taking something else away.

The third commitment speaks to a very real concern for the larger universities in Wales: “Maintain in real terms the quality-related (QR) research budget that underpins Wales’ world leading research.” The size of the sector in Wales means that government can be far more selective in research funding, and REF 2014 showed that the quality of research in Wales as measured by GPA was high. What is also important that scale factors aren’t used as a reason for the Welsh government to reduce QR funding as a response to financial pressures.

The fourth commitment speaks to the variety of access to higher education: “Continue investment in part-time provision both to widen access to higher education and develop crucial skills within the Welsh workforce, mindful that part-time provision requires distinct support and investment in order to deliver for Wales.” This is an area where the English funding model has hit universities hard, with significant declines in part-time study.

The fifth ‘fundamental commitment’ relates to HEFCW: “Retain a funding and oversight body for higher education in Wales to manage risk and provide stability to the sector, provide assurance to Government and enable universities to continue delivering for Wales.”

The proposed changes in English HE would see the abolition of HEFCE. English universities value the buffer HEFCE provides between government and any individual university, and a removal of that buffer, with the more explicit possibility of government choosing which subjects and universities to fund, causes concerns. In Wales the issues are magnified: in a small country it’s easier for government to interfere.

And finally, Europe: “Actively support Wales remaining a member of the European Union.” Wales gets a great deal out of Europe – in terms of funding for economic regeneration, for instance – and it’s a matter of concern for Welsh universities that access to research funding, as well as staff and student mobility, should continue. In practical terms, Welsh government commitment to membership of the EU will mean little in the event of a referendum ‘out’ vote, but the ‘fundamental commitment’ helps emphasise the significance of the EU to universities.

So of the six commitments, the first five – maintenance grants, access to funding for all levels of study, research funding, part-time funding, and regulation – seek directly to counter, address, or improve upon, the changes which have or will happen in England. Welsh Universities know that if their part of the HE system isn’t finely tuned with respect to that in England, they’ll suffer the consequences.

Will the green paper lead to EVEL legislation?

There’s lots written already on the HE green paper and no doubt more to come. My first two-penn’orth is on the question of scope.

David Kernohan on Wonkhe points out, rightly, that the impact of the green paper will not be restricted to England. Quite apart from Sir Paul Nurse’s research review, the impact of the green paper proposals, if enacted, would be felt in universities across the UK. For example, differentials of funding, student information, and perceived status could all increase. If the rest of the world routinely understood the nuances of the UK’s nations (and that fact that England does not equate to Britain, and vice versa) this might also impact upon international issues.

A number of the proposals in the green paper would require primary legislation. HEFCE has a statutory basis in the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act, for instance, so abolishing it needs an amendment to that Act. Would any legislation be considered under the English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) procedure?

EVEL was introduced earlier this parliamentary session, and essentially gives English (and Welsh, sometimes) MPs a veto on legislation which affects only England (and Wales too, on some occasions). It was meant to answer the West Lothian question, but of course it doesn’t provide a satisfactory answer – it was hurriedly thought through to deal with politics, not governance.

It means that legislation which affects only England (or England and Wales in variant b) cannot be passed without the assent of English (and Welsh) MPs, but it doesn’t mean that legislation affecting England (and Wales) will necessarily be passed just because it has a majority of English (and Welsh, sometimes) votes. Any bill still needs to be passed by Parliament as a whole, and as the UK government is finding out at the moment in relation to Sunday trading, that isn’t a given.

The green paper has mixed messages here. Firstly, and one would think unambiguously,

46. Higher education is a devolved matter in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland so most of the proposals in this document apply to England only. However, the funding delivered through the Research Councils and some broader elements of research policy are reserved matters, so the proposals in Part D have UK-wide applicability. (pp16-17)

But then consider later on, in relation to TEF:

16. Our intention is that the TEF develops over time to be comprehensive and open to all HE providers in England, including alternative providers and further education colleges delivering HE provision. As part of this consultation, we are also discussing with Devolved Administrations, whether and how they would like to be involved in the TEF. (p21)

Let’s be blunt – they won’t really have a choice. Universities in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are operating in the same environment as those in England – students are making choices between them, research funders are comparing them. It is in their interest to be in an environment which broadly mirrors that in England.

Devolved administrations will know this, and whilst in Scotland there is an attempt to follow a different path, Wales and Northern Ireland have adopted policies which recognise the connection with the English environment. Sometimes the devolved administration has done it better than England. Despite some worries about close scrutiny, for example, Wales has a simpler approach to access than England, with HEFCW signing off fee plans (the equivalent of access agreements) as a condition of funding.  The link between higher fees and the public interest, which is what OfFA was set up to ensure, is (pleasingly) clearer and easier across Offa’s dyke.

More significantly, perhaps, is that even though HE is a devolved matter, it isn’t a fragmented system in the eyes of staff and students. Cross border flows of both are real, ideas and practices are shared. I’d hope that when it comes to primary legislation, the bill isn’t regarded as EVEL.

Which isn’t to say that it won’t be evil – there’s lots to argue about in the green paper - but please, Mr Speaker, let’s make it an inclusive debate.

Parliamentary scrutiny

Post general election there’s been an ‘emergency’ budget, a new government, elections of new party leaders (has anyone noticed this?) and parliamentary business back in full swing. (Albeit now temporarily suspended for party conference season.)

One of the manifestations of parliament being back in action is the announcement by the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee of an Inquiry into Assessing Quality in Higher Education.  This follows the policy proposals for a Teaching Excellence Framework and a forthcoming Green Paper on Higher Education.

In establishing the Inquiry, the Committee’s chair, Ian Wright, is quoted on the committee website as saying:

“Ministers say they want to develop new incentives to improve teaching quality, tackling what the Government sees as patchiness in provision. The Government faces a number of challenges in seeking to introduce a new Teaching Excellence Framework – not least the challenging timescale it has set – and the Committee will be involved in looking at how this policy area develops from an early stage. As a Committee, we want to scrutinise the Government’s plans for assessing quality in Higher Education, making sure that any new mechanism is effective and works to strengthen the UK’s world-leading university brand.”

All of this is positive – recognising the risks involved in the establishment of the TEF and stating an intention to work on accountability through the development process, not retrospectively.

This is also an area where the realities of the higher education sector work against the devolved nature of government. The sector shares values and habits which work across all of the UK nations, and, because of the dominance in scale of the English sector compared to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, decisions about managing the sector in England have a knock-on effect on the devolved nations.  But HE is a devolved matter, so although the proposals about linking TEF to funding look like they apply only to English universities, they’ll have consequences for the other nations, whatever their governments may want to think. Where England goes, then other nations will probably follow, albeit using a slightly different road (think about driving from London to Bath using the A4 instead of the M4 –it may take slightly longer, but it’s probably also a more pleasant drive, if you enjoy that sort of thing).

Parliamentary committees have no direct power – they can’t direct a change in government policy, or themselves amend a bill – but they are part of the mechanism that helps draft and improve proposed legislation. So the inquiry is timely and important for the sector, to make sure that detailed concerns are heard.

The scope of the inquiry is on the Committee’s website, and for convenience (I’m all about saving you a click or two) here they are too:

The BIS Committee is keen to hear views and welcomes written submissions which address the following questions:

1 What issues with quality assessment in Higher Education was HEFCE’s Quality Assurance review seeking to address? 

2 Will the proposed changes to the quality assurance process in universities, as outlined by HEFCE in its consultation, improve quality in Higher Education?   

3 What should be the objectives of a Teaching Excellence Framework (‘TEF’)?  

a. How should a TEF benefit students? Academics? Universities?
b. What are the institutional behaviours a TEF should drive? How can a system be designed to avoid unintended consequences?
c. How should the effectiveness of the TEF be judged? 

4 How should the proposed Teaching Excellence Framework and new quality assurance regime fit together?  

5 What do you think will be the main challenges in implementing a Teaching Excellence Framework?  

6 How should the proposed connection between fee level and teaching quality be managed?  

a. What should be the relationship between the Teaching Excellence Framework and fee level?
b. What are the benefits or risks of this approach to setting fees?

The Committee itself is made up of eleven MPs – six Conservative, four Labour (one of whom is chair), and one SNP:

Member	Constituency	Local universities
Iain Wright (Lab) – Chair	Hartlepool	Durham, Teeside
Paul Blomfield (Lab)	Sheffield Central	Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam
Richard Fuller (Con)	Bedford	Bedfordshire
Peter Kyle (Lab)	Hove	Brighton, Sussex
Amanda Milling (Con)	Cannock Chase	Staffordshire, Wolverhampton
Amanda Solloway (Con)	Derby North	Derby
Jo Stevens (Lab)	Cardiff Central	Cardiff, Cardiff Metropolitan, South Wales
Michelle Thomson (SNP)	Edinburgh West	Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier, Heriot-Watt, Queen Margaret
Kelly Tolhurst (Con)	Rochester and Strood	Greenwich, Medway Campus
Craig Tracey (Con)	North Warwickshire	Coventry, Warwick
Chris White (Con)	Warwick and Leamington	Coventry, Warwick

You’ll see that there is Scottish and Welsh representation as well as English, so an opportunity for some perspectives from the devolved nations to be heard. And also a fair spread of types of university in or near their constituencies, so there’s plenty of opportunities for lobbying by these universities.

The Inquiry is seeking responses by 30 October. These can come from individuals as well as groups, so this is a good chance to get involved in shaping something which will matter to higher education. Reformism in action.

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...

Inseparable

Two weeks into the election campaign and it seems that despite university and student funding being a matter for the devolved administrations, it’s becoming an election issue where Westminster policies will drive devolved decisions.

The headline issue is Labour’s £6k tuition fee policy. I’ve blogged on this before, and noted that, in my view, this will need an Act of Parliament if there aren’t to be quite significant unintended consequences. Looking at the impact of this on other administrations makes me doubly sure.

Take, for instance. English and Welsh fees policy. They are the two most similar in the four UK nations; universities are allowed to charge up to £9k per year Home/EU undergraduate fee, subject to a test around fair access. The difference is that the Welsh Government pays some of the fees for Welsh domiciled students (that is, students who come from Wales, wherever in the UK they study).

Suppose there’s a Labour Government, and it caps English universities at £6k fees. This creates four different scenarios.

For an English university, there’s two policy worries. Firstly, will HEFCE actually make up the £3k difference? Maybe in the first year, for forms sake, but it would be a brave bet that said it would carry on as a ring-fenced spending item in perpetuity. And secondly, will they be allowed to charge £9k for a student from Wales?

For a Welsh university, slightly different worries: will the Welsh Government continue to fund undergraduate education for Welsh domiciled students at a rate about £9k, regardless of where the funds come from? That’s a question for the Diamond review, but a dramatic change in English arrangements would be bound to have an impact. And secondly, would they be allowed to charge English students £9k? And, perhaps more pertinently, if they did, would any come?

The market for higher education and UK politics intrude inexorably on the devolved administrations. There’ll be similar dilemmas for universities and governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Even when we’ve understood, as a political culture, how to do devolution, there’s still the unavoidable reality that England is by far the largest of the four home nations, in population and economic terms. That reality won’t be changing any time soon.

Most of the answers to the questions above require both political consensus and amendments to Acts of Parliament. If there’s a government with a small majority HE funding might become a touchstone issue. Again.

A capital week

I write at the end of a long week which saw me in each of the three capital cities on the UK mainland: Cardiff on Monday and Thursday; London on Tuesday and Friday; and Edinburgh on Wednesday. Plenty of opportunity for reflection.

Cardiff, London, Edinburgh: and some other places too

One strand of this reflection was about the changes which are occurring in the UK through devolution, and the unequal parts into which the UK is divided. Universities’ behaviour is being affected by this.

Firstly, with respect to students. Each of the nations has its own policy around student support and student tuition fees, but England, as the largest in volume and wealth, is clearly setting a tone. With each student paying £9k per year, funded through the SLC; and now without any cap on student numbers, English universities can seek to recruit (they might not succeed) as many as they like, from wherever they like.

In Wales, the government subsidises students’ fees, so that they pay only about £3,600 per year, wherever in the UK they study. Welsh universities have a financial cap on how many Welsh-domiciled students they can admit (although I understand that in practice this doesn’t constrain recruitment of Welsh students) and the net effect of this is that Welsh universities do best, financially, when they recruit plenty of students from England, creating a net inwards flow of state funding for universities.

In Scotland, universities cannot charge fees for home (or non-UK EU students), but can charge for students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland. They are grant funded in respect of the costs of educating Scottish students. This means that for Scottish universities, students from the rest of the UK are valuable, bringing fee income. But, universities are not funded at the same fee per student basis as in England and Wales, so competing with their counterparts elsewhere in the UK is tricky.

In research things are different (for now): the principal of dual support (through the block grant and, in competition, from Research Councils) is so far safe. This means that every university will get some funds for research, dependent upon their baseline quality assessed through REF. But how long will this last? As national governments (ie Scotland, Wales, NI) gain more power, will they wish to include their ‘share’ of research council funding in their allocations? Will experiments in devolution in England, like that in Manchester, lead to regional university funding?

It is an uncertain time, and each university is also having to plot its own sustainability, with uncertainties about future state/fee funding arrangements, the prospect of further cuts in the coming years, and no real confidence that post-election things will be any clearer.

There’s no moral to this reflection. But there is an obvious truth that the future for university funding and system behaviour won’t be stable for a while yet.

Neverendum? Neverlegislatum!

Blimey! An extraordinary day yesterday in Scotland, and already an extraordinary morning in UK politics. Here’s a lesson from higher education, and a consequence for higher education.

David Cameron’s commitment to address, at the same fast pace, both further devolution to Scotland and the anomalies for the rest of the UK is quite a promise. Draft legislation by January to resolve the West Lothian question in ways which also take into account Wales and Northern Ireland is breakneck speed.

Less significantly, I’ve seen this kind of pace before in universities, when either a VC or a Council decides that committee structures are too cumbersome, and can’t we rationalise them. Quickly. What tends to happen is that some apparently big changes get identified quickly, but these are either found not quite to do the job necessary, or need further detailed work for some years. Or alternately some Registrarial sleight of hand gives the impression of change without the disruption. But neither approach really does what the VC/Council want.

The comparison might not be so out of place. Several reforms of university governance have required acts of parliament, or have stalled on a vote when put to the people. With confidence I can predict, based upon university experience, that there will be complications which either prevent the timetable being adhered to, or have in the footnotes and subsidiary clauses an argument which lasts for years. Not neverendum but neverlegislatum.

Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament

That’s the lesson from higher education. What about the consequence?

The debate is squarely about what matters are UK-wide and what matters are devolved to a different level – nation, (city) region, county – within the UK. There’s also an incommensurable: maintaining the Barnett formula implies continued central state disbursement of money, if it is to be meaningful; against this is a commitment to devolve tax and spending decisions. It’ll be tricky to have both.

At the moment higher education is devolved, with one important caveat, which is the unified funding of research councils via the dual support mechanism. This has up to now been protected by intense lobbying of the relevant minister in Westminster. But will universities have a powerful voice to protect this? If there’s greater regionalism, isn’t it likely that some nations or regions will want to have control of all money for HE in their purview? The hubbub of the bigger question will be large, and it may be that universities complaints fall on ears which can’t hear: not deaf, but too busy. Watch this space!

Should I stay or should I go now?

Last night’s TV debate between Alec Salmond and Alastair Darling brought home to me that the prospect of Scottish independence is possibly very real.  I’m not foolish enough to prognosticate publicly on the rights and wrongs of the question, but it is worth looking at what Scottish independence might do to higher education in the UK.  For this post I’ll look at the student side; research comes another day.

It’s a moot point as to whether there is a single UK higher education sector.  Funding and oversight has been through national funding councils (or similar mechanisms) for some time. And being a devolved matter, quite different approaches to funding of institutions and students have developed in the four UK nations – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.  On the other hand, the mission groups (the Russell Group, Million+, University Alliance and the now-departed 1994 Group) and Universities UK, the sector umbrella body, have always worked on a UK-wide basis.  

HESA publish data on undergraduate student mobility between the four nations (the raw data is in a table at the end of this post), and these show what looks like a politically and sociologically interesting pattern.  For starters, here’s the absolute numbers (2012-13 data) in each of the four nations who choose to study in their home country (‘stay’) or study in one of the other UK nations (‘go’):

2012-13 HESA data; first degree students only

The disparity in scale between the four nations is clear here: England has 85% of student numbers. Not surprising really: it has more universities and more people anyway.

But when you look at percentages a striking picture emerges:

2012-13 HESA data, first degree students only

On this view, England and Scotland are very similar: 95% of students from England and Scotland stay in their home nation.  And Northern Ireland and Wales are also similar: about two in three students from Wales and Northern Ireland stay in their home, but one in three go elsewhere (mostly to England, by the way.)

It’s possible to make broad historico-political points here, about Scotland and England being sustainable polities, and Wales and Northern Ireland being places from which that some people see the need to leave to thrive. But I’m going to refrain from that. 

The balance of trade is interesting too (that is, the difference between total numbers of students from the nation studying the UK, and total number of places taken by UK students in that nation). England and Northern Ireland are net exporters of students, and Wales and Scotland net importers. Also, despite the vastly different sizes of the sectors, the actual numbers have a very similar order of absolute magnitude – between 11,000 and 13,500 for each of the four nations.

Balance of trade	Students:
	From	In	Balance
England	924,680	912,615	12,065
Wales	51,095	62,180	-11,085
Scotland	95,930	109,450	-13,520
Northern Ireland	41,370	28,830	12,540

Overall, if Scotland left the UK, the HE sectors in England, Wales and Northern Ireland probably wouldn’t be much affected. The blunt truth is that compared to the whole, not many Scottish students leave (a short 5,000), and most of these go to England, where their number is but a drop in the ocean. Scotland might notice a change more: 16% of home students at Scottish universities – over 18,000 - come from other UK nations.

I don’t imagine that the vote on 18 September will be swayed by the impact on the university sectors. Nor, by these data, should it.

Here’s the raw data I promised:

	Nation of institution
Origin of students	England	Wales	Scotland	NI	Total
England	880,210	29,610	14,195	665	924,680
Wales	18,725	31,955	400	15	51,095
Scotland	4,515	165	91,200	50	95,930
Northern Ireland	9,165	450	3,655	28,100	41,370
Total	912,615	62,180	109,450	28,830

The numbers are from 2012-13 HESA data (did I mention this?) and refer to first degree students only.