Cardiff University is proposing to reduce undergraduate recruitment and increase student-staff ratios as it battles a threatened ?65 million budget black hole, Times Higher Education can reveal.

The Russell Group institution has already announced plans to shed 400 academic full-time-equivalent roles and to close courses in ancient history, modern languages and translation, music, nursing, and religion and theology, after posting a ?31.2 million deficit for 2023-24.

But internal documents seen by THE state that these measures ¡°do not fully close¡± the funding gap that Cardiff is facing, with the deficit for 2024-25 initially forecasted at ?65 million, and that hitting savings targets ¡°will be contingent on further proposals to be brought forward for the professional services¡±.

They also reveal that Cardiff has rejected the idea of expanding undergraduate recruitment as a way out of its troubles, after several years of seeking to maximise enrolments by ¡°softening¡± its entry requirements.

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¡°The financial benefit of greater volumes of [undergraduate home] fee payers, once indicative overheads are taken into account, is now negligible,¡± Cardiff¡¯s Academic Futures Consultation Document says.

¡°Even with the recent increase to fees [to ?9,535], our modelling of ¡®holding tariff¡¯ v ¡®maxing volume¡¯ scenarios found that there is no longer financial benefit to taking more of this category of student. Put simply, higher volumes necessitate greater on-costs.¡±

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Russell Group universities have taken a growing share of domestic enrolments in recent years, squeezing less prestigious institutions alongside an increasingly volatile international recruitment environment.

But Cardiff¡¯s document says that lowering its entry tariff has resulted in it needing ¡°to accommodate large and diverse cohorts posing challenges for both teaching and the student experience¡±.

As a result, Cardiff plans to reduce domestic student numbers from 2025-26 onwards; stating that it will ¡°return to the grades typically ¡®expected¡¯ of a Russell Group institution, be less reliant on clearing to make our numbers, and will achieve small gains in domestic rankings¡±.

Cardiff¡¯s chemistry department, which has grown rapidly in recent years off the back of clearing recruitment, is expected to see one of the biggest falls in enrolment, from 478 to 328. Likewise, engineering¡¯s intake would shrink from 1,518 to 1,368 if the plans go ahead.

Cardiff also says that it will need to increase its student-staff ratios, and is proposing ¡°significant changes¡± to these ratios in ¡°most schools¡±.?

¡°Given the financial challenge being felt across universities, it is likely that the rest of the sector, including the Russell Group, will inevitably be shifting in the same direction. This change is necessitated by a simple equation of affordability,¡± the document says, acknowledging that having more students per academic ¡°will pose some immediate challenges and will require adaptions to workload, portfolio, and teaching and assessment practices¡±.

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The?highest ratio quoted in the document is 24 students to every academic, including in the newly created School of Global Humanities. Other proposed moves include moving from 13:1 to a ¡°more sustainable¡± 18:1 in Cardiff¡¯s business school, and from 16:1 to 20:1 in the School of Social Sciences.

The document adds that shifting to higher student-staff ratios will require a ¡°reviewing of programmes, including [the] number of optional modules¡±, ¡°amendments to pedagogy, including developing appropriate practices for larger cohort teaching and utilising online/hybrid delivery models¡±, and ¡°amendments to assessment practices to ensure that the assessment load is appropriate for staff and students¡±.

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A Cardiff University spokesperson stressed that these are ¡°proposals and there is still a great deal of detail to work through before any final decisions are made¡±.?

¡°Our final plans will be shaped by our community ¨C both internal and external ¨C through formal consultation. The scale of the challenge will remain, but the way that we address it will certainly be refined and developed over the next 90 days,¡± they said.?

Cardiff¡¯s document adds that it has been struggling on international recruitment, stating that enrolments ¡°have been persistently falling away, with demand from key markets such as China declining sharply since the pandemic, and there is no evidence to suggest this will change in the foreseeable future¡±.

¡°Cardiff is struggling to compete with other, higher ranked and better recognised UK institutions for that decreased international demand,¡± the document says.

Cardiff staff have warned that the proposed cuts will be ¡°devastating¡± for the university and for higher education in Wales more broadly.

¡°The idea that you can maintain the level of teaching and research by cutting staff is cloud cuckoo land,¡± said Joey Whitfield, chair of Cardiff¡¯s University and College Union branch.

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¡°When the vice-chancellor, Wendy Larner, came in, she kept repeating, ¡®You can¡¯t cut your way to excellence.¡¯ I would put those words back to her.¡±

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com