University challenge: the next education crisis

On the insistence of university authorities, freshers’ week will be an online affair this year. But if this autumn is not much fun for students, it will be a lot less fun still for university staff whose admissions system has just been thrown into turmoil by the A-level results debacle. While some institutions now face overcrowding, others face financial ruin.

When the Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announced on Monday that he was abandoning the algorithm devised by Ofqual to moderate A-level results and would allow candidates to keep the grades estimated by their teachers, students were relieved — many more will, after all, now be able to go to their favoured university. Admissions officers at the top universities were rather less happy. Every year, they make offers on the assumption that a certain proportion of students will fail to achieve the grades they need. This year, thanks to over–ambitious predictions by many teachers, grades have risen sharply and universities will be obliged to take far more students than they bargained for. Oxford, for example, confirmed in a statement soon after Williamson’s announcement that it will be honouring all offers. At a stroke, many of the 55,000 students who were offered places in clearing last week can now claim a place on their first-choice course.

The problems will be compounded by social distancing measures. Lecture halls and halls of residence will be operating at reduced capacity. One university, for instance, has decided that student houses which normally take 12 residents will now take eight, forcing a third of students to find accommodation elsewhere. As for the less-renowned universities, they have the opposite problem: they may struggle to fill their courses. Students they would have gained through the clearing system will instead take up places at their first-choice institutions. Others, put off by the prospect of a university life stripped of fun, have chosen to defer.