Student number increase needs funding match

An extra £570 million, on top of extra funding allocated for 2020, will be required in 2022 to prevent a further fall in spending per student in UK colleges and sixth forms.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that a large increase in student numbers means additional spending on sixth forms and colleges has done little to reverse decade of cuts in funding per student. Any further falls in spending per student could create immense resource challenges for colleges and sixth forms given that they have faced the biggest cuts of any education sector over the past decade.

Funding per student aged 16–18 fell by over 11 per cent in real terms between 2010–11 and 2020–21 in further education and sixth-form colleges, and by over 25 per cent in school sixth forms.­

The government allocated an extra £400 million to colleges and sixth forms in the 2020–21 financial year, which, at the time, was heralded as ‘the single biggest annual uplift since 2010’. Whilst true, the IFS says that with student numbers growing by five per cent in 2020 alone, this at best restores funding back to 2018–19 levels, leaving most of the cuts over the last decade in place. The IFS calculates that an extra £570 million will be required in the 2022–23 academic year just to keep funding per student at the level it was in 2020–21.

Imran Tahir, Research Economist and co-author, said: “Despite extra funding in 2020, colleges and sixth forms face immense resource challenges. The additional funding in 2020 only takes funding back to 2018 levels, leaving in place the vast majority of the cuts to funding per student over the previous decade. These institutions now also face a plethora of additional challenges created by fast rises in student numbers and the need to help pupils catch up on lost learning. The government will need to allocate at least an extra £570 million in funding for the 2022–23 academic year as compared with 2020–21 just to keep per-pupil spending at existing levels.”

A new briefing by the IFS claims that the share of 16- and 17-year-olds in apprenticeships fell to a historical low of three per cent in 2020, with a 30 per cent fall in numbers in 2020 alone. The share of 16- and 17-year-olds in full-time education rose to a historical high of 85 per cent over the same period. This follows a long-term rise in participation in full-time education, and especially large rises in 2020 due to abnormally high GCSE results and reduced opportunities outside of education during the pandemic. Given GCSE results this year, there is likely to be a further jump in participation next year.