Cash prizes and free rent: Uni clearing offers 'inappropriate'

Potential students are being offered the chance of rent-free accommodation and cash prizes as part of universities' attempts to encourage them to apply through clearing.

At St Mary's University, Twickenham, students were offered entry into a cash prize draw for applying early.

While at University of Gloucestershire, the prize in a similar draw was a year of rent-free accommodation.

These are "inappropriate inducements", according to a university staff union.

A spokesperson for the University and College Union (UCU) said students should be able to choose the best courses for their needs rather than being swayed by marketing ploys.

"The chaotic scramble to hoover up students through clearing shows why universities need a new funding model," said UCU General Secretary Jo Grady.

The clearing process kicks in once the exam results are out. It matches students with university and college courses which still have spaces.

Students can use it if they fail to achieve the grades for their conditional offer, fail to receive any offers they want to accept, decide after 30 June to apply for university or achieve better grades than expected and want to change universities.

Among the offers to students to induce them to apply for courses are:

• University of Gloucestershire is holding a prize draw for free accommodation to students registering for their “clearing VIP” mailing list

• St Mary's University, Twickenham, is promising a guaranteed place in university accommodation for students who apply before 22 August. It also ran a prize draw for a £250 shopping voucher which it said was "in mind of cost-of-living pressures"

• The University of Sheffield is among those pledging to guarantee certain students accommodation, including those who accept an offer through clearing by 31 August.

BBC News has approached the universities for comment.

Dr Matthew Andrews, pro vice chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire, said he “can understand the criticism” but that he did not think it was “valid”.

Other universities have used similar marketing techniques to attract all students, not just those coming through clearing.

Among these, Nottingham Trent University offered a £250 Amazon voucher for any new students signing up to selected accommodation.

The union links such offers to the wider university funding crisis which has led to suggestions that some universities could fail financially.

"The over-reliance on tuition fee income is causing huge financial instability across the sector," said Ms Grady.

She wants the government "to provide emergency funding to protect all jobs, courses and institutions at risk and end the failed marketised higher education experiment."

This is something the education secretary has previously pushed back on and Universities UK has said it is not something for degree applicants to worry about.

Overall, 2024 is a good year to be applying to university, with 82% of applicants getting into their first choice of university.

But the wider picture is less rosy. According to the Office for Students, about 40% of universities in England are likely to be in deficit.

Tuition fees for domestic students have remained more or less frozen since 2012, losing their real-terms value because of inflation.

Universities have been recruiting international students, who pay higher fees, to make up for the loss in funding but recent changes to visa restrictions and a currency crisis in Nigeria are expected to lead to a decline in the number of international students starting at UK universities next month.

All of this means that universities need to shore up their funding. Part of that will involve recruiting more domestic students, hence the perceived need for some to offer cash inducements.

Additional reporting by Alice Evans, Hazel Shearing and Sherie Ryder