More universities end Turnitin contracts as concerns mount

Several more UK universities are considering whether to continue paying for Turnitin after another two institutions announced they will not be renewing their deals with the edtech giant.

Newcastle University will no longer use Turnitin services beyond the end of the 2026-27 academic year, the institution’s education committee has decided.

The University of Westminster said it is also retiring the product at the end of its current contract in July 2027 “following consultation and approval by the University Executive Board”.

It follows the University of Southampton which earlier this year said it will end its association with the company when its current deal lapses.

Like Southampton, Newcastle, which is beginning a “phased withdrawal of the service”, cited concerns about Turnitin’s end-user licence agreement (EULA), regarding the “potential use of colleague and student data for AI purposes from next year”.

But experts said the reasons for the withdrawals are more manifold, with questions over whether the company’s tools – particularly its once-ubiquitous plagiarism detection checker – continue to justify their price tag in an age of new technologies and constrained finances.

Westminster did not mention data concerns in its statement, instead saying that operating multiple system for coursework submission was confusing for students. Turnitin’s core plagiarism checker product offered diminishing value, the university added, given it was “largely ineffective against the most significant current integrity risk” of students using generative artificial intelligence to produce work. The AI detector also offered by the company was “probabilistic rather than conclusive and carry a recognised risk of false positives”, the university said.

Turnitin has been adamant that student work is not currently being used to train any form of large language model (LLM).

“Turnitin does not train a generative AI model, or LLM. We do train a classifier model, which identifies likely AI-written text and does not produce any content, to predict what is AI versus authentically human,” a spokesperson said.

But universities remain concerned about proposed changes to Turnitin’s EULA, which would introduce new terms regarding the processing of student submissions using AI tools.

The planned implementation had been set for 7 July but was met with sector outcry. Several institutions expressed concerns to UCISA, a membership organisation for universities and colleges which supports their use of informational and technology systems.

Since then, Turnitin has postponed the changes to September next year and agreed to work with a UCISA Turnitin representation group to address the anxieties.

But institutions remain uncertain about whether or not to proceed with subscriptions. Aberdeen is “reviewing” its use of Turnitin, while Aberystwyth University, which is contracted with the company until July next year, has told students if they are uncomfortable about the service they can use virtual learning environment Blackboard for submission and marking tools.

The University of Cambridge has confirmed it will “not accept any changes to the EULA that impact on data privacy or intellectual property”, although it continues to offer Turnitin’s services in the immediate term to staff and students.

But some believe institutions are using the concerns to justify walking away from deals, when saving money is the real motivator.

Thomas Lancaster, principal teaching fellow at Imperial College London, said many universities subscribed to Turnitin “primarily to use its originality checking mode to detect plagiarism, but Turnitin now offers a lot of extra capabilities which universities don’t always feel they need or want to pay for”.

“I think the AI discussions are important, but ultimately the finances are just a deeper driver here,” he said. 

Asked whether the cost of subscription had played a role in its decision, a spokesperson for Newcastle said: “As part of our regular procurement process, we routinely review the market and compare providers to ensure we are securing the most appropriate service for our needs.

“We continue to evaluate alternative options to ensure that robust academic integrity standards are maintained throughout the transition and beyond.”

Turnitin’s prices are not published publicly and vary depending on the type of institution contracting its services, the number of users they have, and the specific features required.

As an idea, however, of costs, information released by Southampton shows the university paid £87,620.50 for Turnitin between 1 September 2024 and 30 September 2025. The university has more than 17,000 undergraduate and 8,000 postgraduate students.

In response to a freedom of information request (FOI) sent last year, the University of East Anglia, a slightly smaller institution, of more than 12,000 undergraduate students and 5,000 postgraduate students, spent £50,892 on Turnitin’s services between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025.

Associate dean for education at Bucks New University, Christopher Lewis, told THE that although there wasn’t “a full-blown exodus just yet...it seems very likely more and more universities will start to have that conversation about their long-term relationship with platforms like Turnitin”.

Lewis, a lead assessor for the Office for Students (OfS), said as generative AI becomes more developed – increasing the risk of students relying on the technology for producing university assignments – many institutions are considering the “nuts and bolts of assessment design” anyway, calling into question whether plagiarism detectors are needed.

But institutions also had far more mature internal systems in place too, Lewis said. “Any virtual learning environment worth its salt can easily handle submission, grading, and feedback natively, allowing universities to uncouple those features and plug in alternative originality tools they feel are most appropriate,” Lewis noted.

Ultimately, he suggested, “leadership teams must reflect on whether the convenience Turnitin offers still outweighs growing contractual, financial, and data privacy headaches”.

Phil Newton, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Swansea, said the rise of AI had reduced the need for Turnitin’s core plagiarism checking service, with its AI detector proving less useful for universities.

“I believe UK universities mostly use only the originality detection function of Turnitin, not the function to detect text written by AI,” he said. “Most university students are using AI in their assessments, and most students are still assessed using take-home essays and other written coursework, which AI is very good at. The ‘originality’ function of Turnitin does not detect AI-generated text, and so it is largely redundant.”

Newton did not believe the cost of a Turnitin licence was a notable financial burden in “the grand scheme of a university budget” but agreed “most UK universities are in a tough spot financially and so any savings are welcome”.

georgia.luckhurst@timeshighereducation.com