Ulster University income international student income rises to £12m

Ulster University's overall income also rose

Ulster University's (UU) income from tuition fees from international students has risen by more than 50% in a year.

The university received more than £12m in fees from international students in 2021-22, up from £7.7m.

The figures are contained in the university's just-published financial statements for 2021-22.

The statements also reveal UU's overall income rose by £20m to almost £260m compared to the previous year.

But like Queen's University Belfast (QUB), UU has said it is "operating in an environment where we receive considerably less funding per student per year" than universities in England.

Their financial statements said universities in England received about £9,143 in funding per student, compared to £8,990 for universities in Northern Ireland.

However, the Department for the Economy (DfE) - which funds universities and further education colleges - faced a budget cut in 2022-23 and it does not yet know what its budget for 2023-24 will be.

The department previously told BBC News NI it anticipated the 2023-24 budget position "will be difficult."

After a number of delays, UU's extensive new £350m Belfast campus opened in September 2022.

About 15,000 staff and students use the new campus, with the majority having moved from UU's Jordanstown site in County Antrim.

The university's financial statements for 2021-22 reveal that it has fully drawn down a long-term loan from the strategic investment board of £158.6m towards the cost of the Belfast campus.

That has to be repaid by 2049 at an interest rate of 0.25%.

Tuition-fee income rise

The bulk of UU's total income of just under £260m in 2021/22 was made up of tuition fees, Stormont funding and income from research grants for specific projects.

That meant the university had a surplus of £13.4m for the year.

Tuition-fee income rose from about £98m in 2020-21 to more than £105m.

The university said that growth was "due mainly to an increase in student numbers from overseas" and an increase in funding from the Department of Health towards medical and healthcare student places.

International students typically pay much higher fees than students from Northern Ireland who study at UU.

While tuition-fee income from international students rose to more than £12m, fee income from local students remained relatively static at around £62m.

The university also received more than £100m from Stormont, but some of that money was used to pay for earmarked costs such as a new graduate medical school and more health sciences courses at the Magee campus.

In December, it was revealed the number of international students at QUB had also risen substantially.

However, both QUB and UU have said they will need an extra 5,000 places for Northern Ireland students by 2030, due to a projected rise in the number of 18 and 19-year-olds.

The number of local undergraduate students at both universities is capped by DfE and depends on available funding.

MPs on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee recently said that cap on student numbers was acting as an "economic handbrake".

The UU accounts also state that the vice-chancellor Prof Paul Bartholomew earned £253,000 in 2021-22 with an additional £54,000 in employer's pension contributions.

Eighteen other members of the university's 2,403 staff also earned more than £100,000.