The last few years have seen several problems for Universities’ finances nationwide, with even major Russell Group Universities like Edinburgh announcing massive job cuts in the face of growing operating costs and financial mismanagement.
Strikes have become commonplace across the country as universities reassess their priorities and capabilities to provide jobs and higher education, yet the story for UCL seems to be somewhat different.
UCL’s 2024 financial statements revealed its total income for the financial year had risen by 161.9% to almost £600m. A combination of careful asset management, good fortunes, and apparent market confidence has allowed UCL’s figures to tell a wildly different story when compared to the rest of the country.
Naturally, there are two big questions which arise: How is UCL regularly turning a profit, and why are other universities failing to do so?
Briefly, we need to talk about figures. One of the major contributors in the previous financial year was a re-evaluation of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) – a pension scheme for UK academics that at one point recorded a deficit of £14bn in 2020.
Fast forward to late 2023, USS was reporting a surplus of £7.4bn, freeing up UCL’s contributions to the deficit recovery, amounting to £454m. Alongside this came £21m in Equity sales and another £23m from UCL’s investment portfolio, a somewhat unexpected surplus. UCL has also managed to dodge the trend of falling overseas applications, seeing a decrease in EU students but an increase in non-EU applicants, whereas it is falling across the board for most other institutions. In pretty much every aspect, UCL has been in the green.
This may leave some of you scratching your heads and wondering why UCL is capable of making millions of pounds in surplus, but you still cannot find a seat in the library for the life of you. In 2014, the UK government removed the cap on student admissions, enabling universities to push the boat out further in how many applicants they can accept for their courses. There is evidence that the success of competitive institutions such as UCL is causing problems for other universities seeking to draw in the same students. Many have argued that this policy created a significant gap in student admissions between universities, and with operating costs for domestic students exceeding those of international students, it creates a greater financial burden on institutions to accept home students and find themselves trying to fill up spaces in clearing. By contrast, UCL’s student body continues to be majority international at 52%, which completely mitigates this issue.
The main argument by UK universities to offset their current deficits is to raise domestic tuition fees, with calls for between £12,000 and £13,000 annually from the industry body Universities UK. There are also significant debates over how the financial mismanagement at other universities is actually occurring, with blame games between trade unions and governing bodies over who is truly responsible for the rising operating costs.
Yet these sorts of debates are absent from campus, at least this year. Your department may have spats over contract renewal amongst its professors, but it is in no shortage of people ready to fill empty posts, or even one-year PGTA agreements. Whilst job security may feel shaky for the academic profession, UCL is able to produce high-quality research whilst utilising a high degree of business acumen, and this has in turn enabled them to fire on all cylinders in the 2025 financial year. It is likely that this trend will continue, and even more likely that the profits will translate into further expansion and renovation in the years to come.
This might all sound a bit odd when you consider that UCL is a registered charity, answerable to a board of unpaid trustees. Its absurdity reflects the cruel reality of the higher education industry; it’s a sink-or-swim business where many people are willing to overlook the elements of their day-to-day experience in favour of the qualification which is received at the end.
UCL is a brand and a graduate factory just as much as it is a place for learning, if not more so. I have argued in the past this is a mutual process whereby students have been drawn to higher education for the prospects of a higher salary as a result of their degree, rather than a love of learning. It is a lot to ask of an 18-year-old to find something they are passionate about, rather than just following what seems to be the best option for their immediate future. Yet that may not be the case for much longer: If smaller and less competitive universities continue to suffer, and the participation gap continues to widen, we may see a decrease in both the number of institutions and the number of people seeking a university degree, opting to pursue work over investing in a tangential qualification.
For the students at UCL, the wider plight of UK universities has no bearing on our institution, it gets the long end of the stick. However, it is often good to remember the bigger picture and understand the position one occupies amongst the millions of university students in this country.
This article appeared in CG92
