King's College London

Despite taking very different approaches to financing, higher education sectors across major European economies are experiencing the same underlying pressure. Universities have grown enormously since the 1950s, but public funding has not kept pace. The tools to fix this are often deeply unpopular. And the increasingly super-national nature of higher education is creating major political challenges for what were once purely national systems.

The report, published by the Policy Institute at King's College London, brings together essays from leading higher education figures across England, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, Despite the differences between their systems, the contributors identify a striking set of common challenges:

• Falling per-student funding: As student numbers have risen across Europe, real spending per student has fallen in the more advanced systems. Universities have responded by increasing class sizes, cutting teaching hours and relying more heavily on short-term and part-time academic staff – with measurable effects on the quality of the student experience.
• The political taboo on fees: With the exception of England, every country studied maintains near-free university education for domestic students. This leaves universities struggling to raise the income needed to match rising costs. France is cited as a particularly acute example: junior lecturers with a decade of training can expect a gross salary of around €30,000 a year.
• Global competition: The report warns that the international competition for research talent affects all countries, and the salaries they need to pay. France, unable to offer competitive salaries, have largely unable to compete. Switzerland has high public investment yet still faces rising costs and risks from its partial exclusion from EU research funding.
• Fragile dependency on international students: Many universities have plugged funding gaps with international student fees – but that income is vulnerable to immigration policy and political concerns over growing use of English-language teaching In the Netherlands, international student numbers have fallen for three years running. In England, the government has announced a £925-per-student annual levy on international enrolments from 2028, threatening to accelerate the financial squeeze created by years of frozen fees and cuts to teaching grants.
• A shrinking graduate premium: The economic case for investment into higher education is being called into question as the average salary advantage enjoyed by graduates over non-graduates declines. Many graduates already work in jobs with no obvious need for graduate skills, and some earn less than people in skilled non-graduate trades – fuelling growing scepticism among both politicians and the public about further funding for the sector. Even in Sweden, where universities have faced relatively little public scepticism, there is growing government interference in university governance alongside a new research funding bill which the sector has criticised as over-narrow and highly directive.

The report details these cross-country trends, analysing funding developments and also addressing the broader political context. Across Europe, universities are facing growing public scepticism, culture-war pressures and questions about their value to society. The authors argue that many of these tensions are symptoms of the underlying funding crisis – institutions stretched too thin, with too many students and too few resources, struggling to deliver on promises that were never adequately resourced.

The report raises a set of uncomfortable questions: Can universities continue to expand without adequate per-student funding? Can systems that reject fees find another way to close the gap? How long can international student recruitment shore up finances as immigration policy becomes increasingly hostile?

And how, on a continent with slow growth, high debt levels, and major geopolitical challenges, do universities cut through to politicians and make a case for change?

Professor Baroness Alison Wolf DBE, Professor of Public Sector Management at King’s College London and lead author of the report said:

“Discussions of English university policy tend to be very narrowly focused on the current English system. The essays in this report make it clear both that leading economies face very similar challenges, and that our universities operate within an increasingly global system. A better understanding of other leading European systems is hugely helpful in clarifying the choices we face and identifying some of the solutions.”