Universities are making over-optimistic forecasts of student numbers and should stop spending or borrowing on the back of them, the sector’s watchdog has warned.
In its first financial assessment, the Office for Students said that universities collectively were expecting a 10 per cent growth in student numbers over the next four years, or 171,000 full-time students. This includes an increase of 78,000 UK undergraduates, despite a decline of 5 per cent in the UK population of 18-year-olds in the same period.
The significant increase in overseas students by 2022 in the forecasts also suggested “a significant level of over-ambition”, it said.
The financial health report showed that “low tariff” universities, often former polytechnics which admit students with lower A-level grades, were making the most ambitious