Statistics on Higher Education
Funding
Overall, the last 20 years have seen a dramatic fall in the total funding of UK HEIs by the Treasury—as figure 1, taken from the Greenaway report, indicates the general trend. This general trend should also be observed with 1) the growth in participation in HE by the British populace (see the section on ‘Access’ within this Statistics section), and 2) the fact that though private sources contributed 37% of total funding received by universities in 1997/1998, most of this funding was directed towards research activities rather than undergraduate education, or graduate level teaching.
The 2004 Higher Education Act aims to invest heavily in HE by allowing UK HEIS to charge £3000 tuition fees per year per student – this obviously presents challenges for increased access and participation.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Chart B2 shows that in 2002, the UK spent under the OECD average (6.1% of GDP) on education. The British Economy is often quoted as the world’s fifth largest, yet the UK is behind the USA, France, Scandinavia and even perceived less ‘developed’ countries such as Mexico.
The source of this graph is from Education at a Glance 2005, an OECD study which is downloadable from the OECD website. This interesting study points out that whilst the UK spends lower than average on HE, it spends greater than average on compulsory primary and secondary education.
Figure 3
All of which led Greenaway and Haynes to conclude that:
To reach the equivalent share of GDP as the EU average would require expenditure in the UK to grow by 4.6 per cent per annum in real terms for the next 10 years. The equivalent growth rate required to reach OECD average would be 7.9 per cent per anum. To get to US levels would need a massive 11.1 per cent each year. To put this in perspective we should note that over the last 10 years, expenditure on higher education has grown at just 2.4 per cent per annum in real terms. The past is often our most reliable guide to the future; the UK is set to fall further behind other industrialised countries, not close the gap, unless funding levels change.
Figure 5
As the above table shows, despite increased government expenditure on HE, the percentage of GDP spent on HE actually decreased in the first four years of the Labour Government, from 1997.
The UK also compares badly with its OECD colleagues when funding for pure research is examined separately.
Figure 6
Funding for research is also concentrated in 15 English Universities – as the table below demonstrates
Distribution of research funding in England for QR funding,Research Council grants and industrial research grants and contract income
Source: QR allocations, Research Council grants, Industry funded research grants HEFCE 2000-01, HESA 2000-01 and contracts, HESA 2000-01
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