Fee hikes are blamed for empty classrooms
The dramatic hike in university tuition fees to £9,000 a year for students starting degrees this year has been blamed for a steep fall in applications for construction degrees, writes Chloe Stothart.
The number of applications for undergraduate degrees in building-related subjects starting this autumn dropped
by 21.5% to 10,323 compared to last year, according to university applications service UCAS.
This compares to a more modest overall drop across all subject areas of 7.7%, and a 16.3% drop when construction courses are aggregated with architecture, landscape design and planning degrees.
UCAS does not yet have figures for the number of students accepted on courses as people are still able to apply through the clearing process.
Universities said the rise in fees, the government’s tightening of visa requirements for overseas students and would-be students’ concerns about their job prospects in the recession-hit industry had discouraged people from applying.
David Baldry, deputy head of the school of the built environment at Salford University, said applications for undergraduate courses had fallen by about 20% compared to last year, blaming the “double whammy” of increased fees and the lower public profile of the construction industry caused by the recession for the steep drop.
Baldry also pointed to a sharp scaling back on employer-sponsored places over the last three to four years. Salford enrolled 30 sponsored students in 2007, but only 12 in 2008.
However, he said the number of applications for postgraduate study remained similar to last year and the number of overseas students had held up reasonably well. But he said the university “could have done even better” in attracting students from abroad had the government not tightened visa requirements.
Nick Morton, head of the Birmingham School of the Built Environment at Birmingham City University, said the fall in applications at his institution was in line with that at other universities, but declined to give a figure as recruitment was ongoing.
He said: ”It reflects the depressed economic situation nationally. But I think it is contingent upon us all to push the ultimate value of such a career because the upturn will come. People are mindful of the fee structure coming in and are looking at their career afterwards and maybe taking a short-term view of their career. We know our sector is cyclical and there will be an upturn.”
He said tighter visa rules for overseas students “had not helped either” and applications from foreign students were also down.
Ros Thorpe, CIOB’s head of education, said she thought future graduates might be deterred from going on to postgraduate study by the extra debt they had incurred during their first degree because of the rise in fees.
