Cohort size is a business, educational and operational concern.
Small cohorts of students may be economically unsustainable while cohort size may also impact on pedagogy or effective delivery of programmes. Larger cohorts may impact on quality, while smaller cohorts are vulnerable to being overlooked. Both may lack or lose cohort identity and educational cohesion (1), particularly where they are too large to be accommodated or too small in comparison to related programmes.
Decisions relating to sustainability and viability of programmes reside within Faculty business planning teams, although the resources that support delivery of education are provided within Faculties and also centrally. The University as a whole, therefore, has a valid stake in ensuring viable and sustainable programme sizes.
Expectations
- Faculty Boards should set the level of recruitment that they feel constitutes financial sustainability for any programme, taking account of the full economic costs of developing and delivering programmes. This might be expressed as fee income or FTE student numbers as appropriate, and might be expected to vary with the type of programme or other factors.
- All new undergraduate programmes should demonstrate the potential to grow to an annual recruitment (averaged over three years) of 15 students, recognising that it can take 3 years for a new programme to become established.
- Existing undergraduate programmes that have failed to recruit a rolling 3-year average of 15 students should either be restructured to a more sustainable delivery model, or move to closure.
Notes
- O’Donnell, V.L., Kean, M. and Stevens, G., 2016. Student transition in higher education. Higher Education Academy and recommendations about low numbers on pathways/programmes by López-Pastor, Pintor, Muros and Webb (2013)