The Biggest Postgraduate Recruitment Challenges of 2023 and How we Tackled Them
We all know that the post-covid era has posed challenges for the higher education sector, and the cost of living crisis made 2023 a particularly hard year for students and university professionals alike. For our December webinar, we chatted with a panel of UK university representatives about how they rose to the challenge. In this blog, Beth, Postgraduate Manager at the University of Lincoln, lays out some of the strategies she has helped implement at her institution.
Unsurprisingly, 2023 was a tough year for postgraduate student recruitment, and 2024 looks set to be the same. But just as 2023 brought challenges, it also brought solutions! At the University of Lincoln, we've been hard at work finding ways to meet our targets and deliver for our students in spite of the difficulties we face as a sector.
The challenges
As the higher education sector financial crisis continues to deepen due to inflation, issues around tuition fee revenue and international recruitment challenges, university leaders are increasingly looking to postgraduate recruitment as one potential solution to plug the funding gap. As a result, colleagues working in postgraduate recruitment are undoubtedly looking at ambitious growth targets over the coming years.
Prospective postgraduate students themselves are facing challenging circumstances too. The fact that the Masters loan value has not risen in line with inflation means that many students simply cannot afford to study a postgraduate qualification. Furthermore, the worries over the cost of study adds to the general anxiety that we are seeing in this cohort of graduates.
Post-covid, the mental health of students is poor, and they are lacking in confidence. There is a lot of concern amongst prospective Masters students about whether they have the academic ability to study a postgraduate degree. Coupled with the cost concerns, this is a real barrier to recruitment.
The solutions
In my role, I have been looking at ways to tackle concerns around the cost of study as well as boosting student confidence in committing to a postgraduate qualification.
Emphasising career opportunities and financial support
Tackling the financial challenges first, we have been working hard to emphasise the long-term financial benefit of undertaking a course of postgraduate study. We have been exploring opportunities to work with the University Career’s Centre to deliver events promoting opportunities for postgraduate students. We’ve also been fostering collaborations with industry partners to create postgraduate programmes that align with current market demands, and that contain valuable work placements and networking opportunities!
On top of this, we’ve been highlighting scholarships, bursaries, and flexible payment plans so that it is easier for students to spread the cost of their studies using monthly or quarterly payment plans.
Dialling back the jargon
It’s important not to assume that just because they are currently studying in a higher education environment, applicants are familiar with postgraduate opportunities, terminology, or benefits. We’ve been going back to basics with the information that we present to prospective students to make sure that it is easily accessible and free of higher education jargon!
Highlighting support services
We have also been making sure that our prospective postgraduate students are aware of the support services that are in place for the duration of their postgraduate studies. We have been emphasising not only the course information and in-programme support, but also guidance about funding support, careers advice, disability support, mental health support and have included advice from current postgraduate students via student panels and information sessions.
Flexible learning opportunities
We have also been exploring whether flexible learning options might counteract some of the difficulties around funding and confidence that we are seeing from our prospective UK postgraduate population. We have been seeing increasing interest in hybrid, online or flexible learning options rather than full-time on-campus study, as these are often perceived as better value for money and easier to fit around established work or family commitments. Post-covid, for Home fee-paying students we have seen a growth in interest in postgraduate study from the 35+ age group, but their interest is almost exclusively for part-time or flexible learning options so that they do not need to leave their career to engage with learning.
To round up, it’s important to make sure that important information is shared with prospective students at key points in the recruitment cycle to increase their confidence in postgraduate study in the UK! This means utilising your marketing strategies to target students effectively and to share information about financial, academic and pastoral support, as well as exploring alternative ways of offering programmes, whether through hybrid teaching, online learning, or micro-credentials.
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