The news today from UCAS that over a third of students in England, Wales & Northern Ireland received an unconditional offer in the last cycle reminds us how many universities are scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of desperation tactics.

What started off in the Midlands a few years ago has now spread like a cancer among the weak and nervous right across the country. It’s particularly galling to me as a marketing man, that this cancer is being blamed on ‘marketisation’ when it’s the very opposite of what a decent marketing man would recommend. Strong brands do not discount. Weak brands discount before they wither and die.

Go to the discussion boards on The Student Room and you’ll see how prospective students talk about universities that offer unconditional offers. They perceive them as weak and desperate - a last resort. A minority might find them attractive, but the majority respect those that stand firm on conditional offers and work to achieve the required standards. Who wants to be associated with a weak brand?

Unconditional offers undermine all the work the University is doing elsewhere to boost its reputation and its ranking.  What they say to students is that the university is not strong enough to compete on quality, so it has to hoist the equivalent of a permanent SALE! sign up on its website - contradicting everything else it is doing to do to boost its reputation.

You can’t have it both ways. You are either a quality institution charging a fixed tariff or you’re cheap and cheerful and will do anything to make a sale. The former will survive and prosper. The latter will go to the wall.

With no help from the OfS.