The University of Sheffield is set to make savings of around £50 million due to a fall in student numbers.
There are less International students in particular, applying for visas to study in the UK.
We spoke to one of the Vice Presidents of the Sheffield UCU, David J Hayes, to hear what he had to say on this issue.
In regards to the University of Sheffield, he said: “They were looking to make savings of about a total of 50 million over the course of the next three years and the plan was to run at a slight deficit this year and next year and then to return to a surplus in 2026/27.”
Home office figures showed that 16% fewer visa applications were made between July and September than in the same period in 2023.
A spokesperson for the University said: “Our recruitment position this year has seen an increase in high quality students from the UK. This is good news and reflective of our positive position in many national and international rankings and our WhatUni University of the Year status.
“However, like many universities across the UK, we have seen a reduction in the number of international students joining us this year and this has impacted our annual income.
“We have spoken to staff at the University about some of the measures that we are taking to manage this reduction, which include reviewing infrastructure projects and carefully managing staff vacancies.”
All departments have been told to make savings over the coming year.
They added: “Along with other universities, we are also continuing to speak to the Government about the value our research, innovation and education brings to the UK economy. We hope to work together to find solutions to some of the funding challenges facing UK higher education.”
Figures show that the number of students has fallen by 2200 this year, which is a reduction of about 7% compared to 2022/23.
David J Hayes also explained to us why there has been such a significant drop.
He said: “Global student recruitment generally often relies on big league tables which are kind of arbitrary but make a lot of difference to how viable a place is as a competitor on the international student market.”
He told us that generally the QS top 100 league table is ‘kind of a gold standard for the chinese market’.
The University of Sheffield is currently ranked 105th in the QS top 100, however we are now 98th in the Times Higher education top 100 which is ‘another global ranking that is less important than QS’.
David said: “That’s made it a lot harder, even to make international students aware of the University of Sheffield as a place to come and study but also to think of it as being worthwhile given the cost of tuition fees.”
We spoke to international student, Coleen J Parakattil, who shared her thoughts on the issue.
She said: “I did look at QS World rankings and the guardian rankings. I used this initially when deciding my 5 choices for the UCAS application. And after I received offers, I did refer to different rankings
“Just to give me an overall idea about the quality of research and general student experience. But it wasn’t the most important thing though as it just helped me narrow down choices.”
David J Hayes explained how he thinks the university could have done more to prepare for this drop.
He said: “The university saw this coming in our negotiations with them. We know that they were worried about this at least last year, I don’t think they appreciated the scale of the problem.”
Despite this, David recognised that the university is ‘actively considering everything that they can do’.
Written By Casey Peyton
