Mergers, missions, and mitigations – Welsh higher education during devolution

Dewi Knight

In the 600-year interval between Glyndwr’s Parliament and the Senedd, the development of distinctly Welsh education institutions and priorities was possibly the most robust reflection and representation of Welsh national identity and ambition.

The creation of colleges at Aberystwyth, Bangor, and Cardiff, as well as the University of Wales, were products of a late nineteenth-century class, cultural, national, and industrial mission.

The founding charter of the University of Wales (1893) constituted a university ‘in and for Wales, for both men and women to be eligible equally, for north, mid and south Wales; and for the advancement of the nation’.

The higher education sector in Wales

At the end of the twentieth century and the start of the new era of democratic self-government, Wales had thirteen universities, and all but the University of Glamorgan (now part of the University of South Wales) were members of, or affiliated to, the University of Wales.

In the last 25 years of democratic self-government, the shape and size of the Welsh higher education sector, especially that of the national university, has altered remarkably.

Institutions have merged, been renamed, and ceased to exist. The nature of student fees and funding has changed regularly, often as a reaction to developments in England but with different choices made on how, when and who to support financially.

Choices made by successive Welsh Governments and the Higher Education Funding Council Wales (HEFCW) sought to promote collaboration rather than competition, ultimately leading to the establishment in 2024 of Medr (the national ‘Commission for Tertiary Education and Research’) which is attempting to manage all post-16 education as one system.

Successive administrations have also nurtured new national educational bodies that seek to advance national priorities.

In 2010, the Learned Society of Wales, the first national scholarly academy for Wales was established, like those in London, Edinburgh, and the island of Ireland.

As part of the One Wales Coalition between Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru, in 2011 Y Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol was established to ‘maintain, develop and oversee Welsh medium higher education provision’.

In 2017, as part of the agreement between Labour and Liberal Democrats, Kirsty Williams became the Minister for Education. Under this agreement, the remit of the Coleg was extended to include further education colleges, apprenticeships, and work-based learning.

The UK’s departure from the EU dramatically changed the research funding landscape of Wales, and partly to address this loss, Welsh universities have now come together through the Wales Innovation Network to identify strategic partnerships and be more competitive in securing UK-wide research funding.

Higher education funding in Wales

Over the last 25 years, as in England, funding to Welsh universities has come more from student fees and less from HEFCW grants.

Successive Governments have sought ‘made in Wales’ solutions within this context, particularly on student financial support.

In 2002, limited and targeted means-tested student grants were reintroduced, providing a sharp contrast between Labour administrations in Cardiff and London.

When ‘top-up’ fees (£3,000) were introduced in Wales (following England), the cost to students was subsidised through a Fee Grant so that the cost remained equivalent to the pre ‘top-up’ fee of £1,175.

Again, this saw Labour ministers in Cardiff seeking to mitigate the effects of Labour Westminster policy.

£9,000 fees were introduced in 2012/13 and student number controls were removed. Both were policies designed for England, but the cross-border flow of students and ‘competitive’ positioning of Welsh universities saw Welsh Ministers implement the same headline policies.

Following the move to £9,000 fees, Leighton Andrews (as Minister) introduced a much larger Tuition Fee Grant ‘to cover the additional costs of fees wherever in the UK they choose to study’ (in effect, increasing the fee grant to £5,500+ for full-time undergraduates).

This was even sharper political and policy positioning between a Welsh Labour / Plaid coalition and the Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition in Westminster. The fee grant was not means-tested, was portable across the UK and did not support upfront costs; a limited student support grant remained available, but costs were mostly covered by a loan. Some part-time students were now also able to access a tuition fee loan.

The Diamond Review (2016) led to a different approach and emphasis on student support. Kirsty Williams abolished the tuition fee grant policy and shifted funding towards maintenance support. Seeking to deliver for ‘all’ students and the ‘whole system’, she introduced means-tested maintenance grants and loans available to all full- and part-time undergraduates and an equivalent system for postgraduates.

Full-time undergraduates from Wales – wherever they are studying in the UK – can receive a maximum maintenance grant of £8,100 (£3,000 for part-time) and a loan of £4,050. All full-time undergraduates are eligible for a minimum ‘base grant’ of £1,000. This is the most generous maintenance package in the UK.

Ministers have now switched postgraduate support to loans only, and the full-time fees will rise to £9,535 a year from September 2025, in line with England.

Cross-border flows

Student mobility is a distinctive characteristic of higher education in Wales. Welsh students have long been drawn to the larger English sector (Jesus College Oxford was established and then evolved in the sixteenth century as a de-facto Welsh college).

Each year, just under a third of Wales-domiciled undergraduates enrol on courses at providers in England. The equivalent figure in both England and Scotland is less than 10%.

Within the Welsh sector, over half of undergraduates at Welsh institutions are from Wales, and just over a third from England. This has been a consistent trend over the last 25 years, and Wales is a net importer of students.

Political and policy divergence

Leighton Andrews’s 2010 warning that universities needed to ‘adapt or die’ shocked the sector. HEFCW followed by recommending fewer but larger universities within a regionalised approach.

This created the conditions for university mergers, alongside the controversies of the University of Wales’ international operations. Institutions were already withdrawing from Wales Degrees and issuing their own, and the University of Wales effectively ceased to exist, merging with Trinity Saint David and Swansea Metropolitan to create a new university (which also includes constituent further education colleges).

In 2016, Kirsty Williams challenged universities to ‘recapture and reinvent a civic mission’. This was a response to the Brexit referendum and a worry that the sector was disengaged from its historical purpose and from Welsh policy challenges.

This was a move away from a focus on changing the number and shape of individual institutions towards viewing universities (and government) as ‘stewards of communities’.

This agenda saw the sector become a real living wage employer and increased relationships with schools. A Civic Mission Framework – the first such in the UK – was agreed by all universities during the pandemic and continues to guide the sector’s ‘people and place’ contributions.

However, more comprehensive strategic reconfiguration had not gone away. Initiated by Williams, and with legislation taken through the Senedd by Jeremy Miles (with an emphasis on social partnership and lifelong learning), the new Medr has been operational since August.

As an arm’s length body that funds, plans, and regulates post-16 education and research, it has taken on all the functions of the now-dissolved HEFCW, plus many Government functions.

A consultation on the body’s first strategic plan has recently closed. It focuses on a “more joined up sector”, with providers “encouraged to focus on their strengths” to “meet the needs of Welsh society and its economy.”

We might be seeing the first steps towards a national approach which promotes ‘differentiation’ across higher and further education, with institutions concentrating more on their separate identities and goals.

Conclusion

The ambition of those miners, quarrymen, industrialists, and academics which established Welsh higher education in the 19th century may be hard to match now.

But if we are to move with a real ‘differentiation’ strategy for Wales, could we work towards a postgraduate-only advanced research institution aligned to national economic and innovation priorities.

It could draw inspiration from the Cranfield University model, the suggestion for a ‘Future Generations Lab’, or a completely new model co-developed and owned by the sector, government, and industry.

Whatever happens in the next period, we should move forward in the spirit of Elizabeth Hughes, the Welsh higher education pioneer and the only woman involved in the drafting of the original University of Wales charter.

In a pamphlet of 1884 arguing for co-education, the promotion of women’s education and the importance of a Welsh dimension to our education system, she said that “education must be national, and must be in our own hands”.

The next period of devolution will test our ability to fulfil that promise.

This is an edited version of an essay that first appeared in a new Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) collection “Evolution of Devolution: How Higher Education Policy Has Diverged Across the Four Nations of the UK”, to mark 25 years since the devolution of powers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The original essay was co-authored by Dewi Knight and Dr Sarah Morse.

He has been a policy and strategy director in UK and international higher education, a director at Seren Books, and is an adviser and mentor for UKRI and ESRC research leadership programmes.