Kent finances improve despite near £10 million drop in fee income

The University of Kent significantly cut back on costs before completing its merger with the University of Greenwich, long-awaited accounts reveal. 

Nearly 10 per cent of the institution’s staff team left, helping to start to turnaround Kent’s finances in the run up to the new alliance being finalised.

Kent was one of the last English universities yet to file its 2024-25 accounts, despite them being due at the start of the year.  

It has now released its last full-year financial statement as an independent body – revealing it has improved upon its 2023-24 deficit of £6.3 million.

The university reported a statutory deficit for the year of £5.6 million but said this was largely due to a loss of £2.1 million on the sale of surplus buildings at its Medway Campus.

Without this, along with other one-off costs such as redundancy and restructuring payments of £6 million, it said it would have posted a surplus of £0.6 million.

The report attributed the strengthened performance to “continued cost management”.

It happened despite Kent experiencing a £9.6 million decrease in student tuition fee income, which it blamed on “a challenging recruitment environment”.

The accounts identify international student recruitment as the “most challenging area” and describe the situation as “intensified” by visa changes, which in recent years have included a ban on most foreign students bringing dependants to the UK.

For Kent, tuition fees from international students fell by £8.3 million between 2023-24 and 2024-25.

The accounts were posted shortly after Kent and Greenwich completed their merger to become the UK’s third-largest university in student numbers on 1 August.

Under the title of the London and South East University Group (LASE), the institutions will preside over a more than 50,000-strong student body. Only the Open University and UCL have more.

Graduates will hold degrees from Kent or from Greenwich and apply to the institutions individually, but one vice-chancellor, Greenwich’s Jane Harrington, will take on the role of overseeing both, and their services will combine behind the scenes.

Kent leader Georgina Randsley de Moura becomes senior deputy vice-chancellor and deputy chief executive. She was paid £255,00 for her year as vice-chancellor, the accounts show. 

Kent’s financial statement shows that in spite of its struggles with student recruitment, total income increased by £0.3 million, or 0.1 per cent, in the year to £268.7 million.

Reductions in the amount of money taken in via tuition fees were offset by increased income across “most other areas” of the university’s operations, most notably within research grants and contracts income.

Kent’s teaching grant from the Office for Students (OfS) rose by £2.9 million from 2023-24, and income from research grants and contracts overall increased by £4.6 million to £21.5 million, jumping 27.6 per cent.

Meanwhile, the university said saw 229 staff redundancies – 8.3 per cent of its full-time workforce, the accounts note. The reduction helped contribute to a 3.3 per cent reduction in staff expenditure in 2024-25.

The accounts say the Kent and Greenwich merger will provide a “stable platform for long-term sustainability”.

“The higher education sector will undoubtedly continue to face financial, regulatory and competitive pressures,” the report notes, adding: “However, the [university] council is confident that the actions taken over recent years, culminating in the formation of LASE, have established a sustainable foundation for the future.”

georgia.luckhurst@timeshighereducation.com