Sam Hall

Why universities are paying students to stay away

Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

In the same way that airlines overbook flights, universities send out more offers than they have places for on the basis that many applicants will not make the grade. But what happens when most of them do? Airlines often use financial incentives to persuade someone to surrender their seat and similarly universities have been known to offer successful applicants thousands of pounds to defer. The exams fiasco means universities are now under even more pressure to make students a gap year offer they can’t refuse.

Scrapping the exams algorithm and replacing it with teacher predicted grades meant that students from poorly performing schools didn’t miss out just because some computer code forecasted failure. But the new approach has seen the number As and A*s increase by around a third. This means that tens of thousands of applicants – perhaps as many as 60,000 – who reluctantly accepted a place at their second choice of university are now scrambling to take up to their preferred offer. Many popular courses are already full, however, meaning students face an enforced year out at the worst possible time for either work or travel prospects.

Some students are already taking legal action in an attempt to avoid an unwanted, and for many, an unaffordable gap year. Financial incentives could allow universities to avoid such legal tussles. Last year, even without the added impetus of a global pandemic, Nottingham and Exeter offered some applicants £2,000 and £1,000 respectively to create space on oversubscribed courses. Manchester, another Russell Group university which made similar offers in the past, said: ‘occasionally we do seek to balance numbers with existing offer holders through offering options to defer entry. It is the student’s choice to defer or not.’

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in