Review of Ratio analysis of financial KPI in the Higher Education sector in Mensa Magazine

There are a number of reasons for publishing this review.

Firstly, the high-IQ society British Mensa is undergoing a series of structural changes under which the monthly Mensa Magazine has ceased publication, and been replaced by the bi-monthly IQ magazine. This means that Mensa Magazine has now become a collectors’ item that will over time become rarer.

Secondly, the research published in this book is arguably of sufficient importance to warrant recognition in this august publication. The data for much of this research came from 2006-2016 Annual Reports, and so, arguably, provides a pre-Brexit benchmark against which post-Brexit performance can be measured.

Available from good booksellers in paperback and hardcover, such as Amazon, and as an ebook from Google Play and Apple Books.

Bernard Mulholland, Ratio analysis of financial KPI in the Higher Education sector: a case study (2018).

https://books.apple.com/us/book/id6445320705

https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=YfWkEAAAQBAJ

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MB99NWP

Based on observations that the nature of universities in the Higher Education sector in the UK appear to be changing from purely charitable organisations and moving into the business sector two interrelated questions arise which build one on the other. These are:

1. Can ratio analysis of financial KPI be applied to universities in the HE sector in the UK and where appropriate a set of benchmarks extrapolated based upon an average score?
2. Are there other measures of financial KPI specific to the HE sector that can be developed to augment these?

For the purposes of this research a case study comprised of a representative sample of nine universities in the UK was selected from the Russell Group (Table 1.2) because they have a shared vision, mission and set of objectives that should better allow for comparative analysis between them. There are two in Scotland, one in Wales, one in Northern Ireland, and the five highest ranked English universities in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2015-2016.
The case study includes: University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Imperial College London (ICL), University College London (UCL), The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE&PS), University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow, Cardiff University, and Queen’s University, Belfast (QUB).
The Appendix has juxtaposed tabulated data and graphs illustrating the financial KPI over a period of ten years for each university. We hope you enjoy it and think the data is of interest. A must-read for anyone interested in the Higher Education sector, or, attending any other university who want to draw comparisons between their university and the Russell Group.