Earlier this week the BBC reported a decline in the number of part-time students starting degrees at UK universities. The number of first-year students studying part time in 2014-15 fell by 6% on the previous year, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

Dr Will Curtis, Director of Academic Studies at the Centre for Lifelong Learning, shares his views about this trend:

Part-time student recruitment and participation have declined dramatically since changes in funding that came into effect in 2012 – with course fees effectively tripling, the removal of grants and the non-existence of loans for applicants who already possess an undergraduate degree. The decline is tremendously detrimental for individuals – who are no longer afforded the opportunities they would have had to learn, to progress, or to shift career focus.

Wider society is also being damaged – with notions of a ‘learning society’ replaced by learning restricted to something that takes place during narrowly defined periods of citizens’ life course and the subsequent detrimental effect on social mobility.

Declining numbers over the last 3 years has also harmed higher education institutions. Today, universities are far less diverse in their student bodies. Without subsidy, extramural provision has proved unsustainable and has more or less disappeared in many areas. The rich and varied experiences of adult learners contribute far less than they did to seminar discussions.

As part-time numbers decline, institutions lose the capacity to offer the flexible, specialist provision that literature and experience tells us adult learners depend on. Consider the number of specialist lifelong learning / continuing education departments that have closed in recent years to start to see the impact of these funding changes. And simultaneous assaults on adult education funding in further education mean there are fewer and fewer opportunities for older students to study in the public sector.

Within this challenging landscape, it is great that Warwick has invested in lifelong learning and that it continues to have a vibrant part-time and adult student community. By developing pre-entry, access provision and by diversifying the part-time course offer, student recruitment and achievement have remained positive over the last 3 years.

In September 2017, the Centre for Lifelong Learning intends to launch a new suite of flexible academic and professional undergraduate and postgraduate provision, alongside a new community programme - which will offer a wide range of short courses for adults in the West Midlands. Universities and societies are better places if opportunities exist for all people to study alongside their working and family lives."