Durham and Warwick among lowest recruiters of local students

Durham and Warwick are among the English HE institutions with the lowest levels of students from the regions in which they are located, according to analysis by Times Higher Education (THE).

This analysis, drawn on figures provided by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa), puts pressure on universities as the UK government talks about “levelling up” regions.

Both Durham and Warwick recruit just over 10% of their UK intake from their regions, with 10.1% of students being from the North East and 13.1% from the West Midlands respectively.In addition, Loughborough University recruited a regional total of 13.1%, followed by the University of Cambridge (13.4%) and the University of Bath (15%).

Of the 20 English universities in the Russell Group, 15 are in the bottom quartile of all English universities when it comes to the proportion of UK students drawn from their own regions.

By contrast, Newman University, the University of Wolverhampton, Edge Hill University and Birkbeck, University of
London all recruited more than 80% of their UK students from their regions.

Andy Westwood, professor of government practice at the University of Manchester, said there are “clearly some issues in the East Midlands, North East and West Midlands in both progression rates [into HE] and broader economic challenges that suggest this might not be an optimal way of functioning – for the institutions themselves or for the sector, funding bodies, regulators and ministers”.

The North East is the region “with the lowest rate of participation in higher education in England”

– Stuart Corbridge, Durham’s vice-chancellor

He added that “if regional inequality and low productivity are to be tackled properly,” HE institutions’ roles in local
recruitment and retention of graduates and the economic benefits of universities should be “much more ‘sticky’ to the places they exist in”.

Stuart Corbridge, Durham’s vice-chancellor, noted that the north east was the region “with the lowest rate of participation in higher education in England.”

He continued: “We have a large number of programmes to encourage students from the north east of England to apply to study here, or indeed to go on to study at another university, and we are constantly building these programmes and the financial support that underpins them.”

Durham recently came under fire after a report on the treatment of Northern students was published by student Lauren White.

A spokesperson for Warwick said that its 970 degree apprenticeship students are not included in the Hesa figures, and that it launched the £10 million Warwick Scholars programme last year, which supports up to 500 young people from the Midlands to study at the university annually.