Please read this if you would like your children to attend uni in the UK.

[Rikkitikkitemper]

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/leaders-of-100-top-uk-universities-warn-of-brexit-risk-to-global-standing-a7092516.html

[MuddledMuse]

OP, this referendum seems to have unleashed all sorts of feelings I have had about all sorts of issues for some time about how we run things today.

I feel very, very passionate about helping our youngsters, indeed the youngsters of the world, to achieve their full potential.

My honestly held belief is that if educational institutions cared more about TEACHING, than they do about research and making money, then there would not be so much talk about needing skills from elsewhere.

I could rant on endlessly about this, but will spare everyone.

[IamSlavetotheEU]

I cant see point of this, I thought our unis have always been leading in the world or was this purely after we joined the EU?

[caroldecker]

Oxford and Cambridge struggled as the worst unis in the world until the 70's, when EU entry turned them into world-beaters.
On Friday, if we leave, they will drop down the rankings to the bottom.

[MuddledMuse]

The worst unis in the world? LOL.

[Turbinaria]

Ffs I'm 48 and I can remember a world before the eu interfered with every part of British life. We have 3 universities in the top 10 of global universities and there are no other universities from the whole of the EU in the top 25 global rankings. www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2015/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank_label/sort_order/asc/cols/rank_only. UK universities don't need the EU to hold their own in at this area its the EU needs us to improve their universities.

The other thing that's annoying me about this whole referendum debate is how the Remain side have brainwashed the 20 somethings into believing how we couldnt travel or studied freely in the Europe prior to the EU. All my friends who studied a European language or Geography went to Europe for a year and in exchange European students came here. Almost every student I knew of my generation inter railed around Europe as students and had no problems travelling with a uk passport and we didn't need visas. Those who spoke a second European language had no problems finding jobs in Europe after graduation as being bilingual was the essential skill employers wanted.

So in summary I don't believe this will all end if we left the EU as we had it all before the EU was even thought of.

[Turbinaria]

CarolDecker present your evidence to support your above statement.

[fourmummy]

Here is some info about the University of Oxford:

Established in: 1096-1167

With an alumni list that includes 26 UK Prime Ministers, 20 Archbishops of Canterbury, 12 saints, 27 Nobel laureates, 47 Nobel Prize winners and one Sir Stephen Hawking, the University of Oxford is as respected as it is old. While the university’s exact foundation date remains a little vague, evidence of teaching dates as far back as 1096, and some claim it was established even earlier. Current at joint 5th in the world rankings, the University of Oxford is truly one of the highest ranked and oldest universities in the world, catering to a student community of around 22,000 and operating the largest university press in the world.

And this is what we know about the University of Cambridge:

Established in 1209 by a group of scholars leaving the University of Oxford due to political conflicts, the University of Cambridge today marginally out-ranks its elder, currently at joint 2nd in the world alongside Imperial College London. Sharing many common traditions, Oxford and Cambridge maintain a healthy sense of rivalry, which comes to a head in the famous annual Boat Race event. Cambridge has more than 18,000 students, of which 6,000 are postgraduates.

I think we can safely say that CarolDecker may be a tiny bit wrong.

[fourmummy]

Unless CarolDecker was being ironic...in which case I applaud the humour.

[smallfox1980]

I think CarolDecker might have been being sarcastic.

But I do think that its funny that when University Leaders say they are better off in the EU and that leaving puts things at risk that people immediately contradict them, you also can't say that "well before the EU they were all great" either, we've been inside the common market for a long time and if the people who know the most about universities say its a risk, I'd think that it is a risk.

[fourmummy]

Yes, SmallFox I just realised about CarolDecker. I have heard Remainers say so many times that the bottom of our world is going to fall out, including a race to the bottom for our universities (which is nonsense) that it becomes difficult to tell who is being sarcastic and who isn't. British science has been world-leading for centuries. Leaving won't make a jot of difference. Only 12% of our R & D budget comes from the EU anyway and yet we have the most top universities in the best 200 in the world out of any country (apart from the US). It rather looks like other European countries wish to ride on the UK's coat-tails in trying to get as many of their universities into similar rankings.

[Turbinaria]

Universities have had so much government funding removed they are desperate for more and more students who pay fees including those from the EU hence their need for the UK yo remain in the EU

[DoinItFine]

The Universities should definitely recruit their Chancellors from amongst the experts on this thread, who clearly know so much more about running a contemporary university than the current people leading some of the world's most highly rated institutions.

[Turbinaria]

The average pay of a UK university vice Chancellors is now £272,000. Any institution which contributes to this will be welcome including the EU and its students
www.theguardian.com/education/2016/feb/11/average-uk-university-boss-vice-chancellor-salary-rises-272000

[titchy]

Universities are worried because a) EU students would no longer be able to access fee loans and would have to pay MUCH higher fees - so student numbers and hence income will reduce; and b) universities can currently access a lot of EU money for research. Do people honestly think a Brexit UK government would plug that gap given that they have decimated public funding to universities?

I'm sure student exchanges to EU universities will still be supported by UK universities but they will become the preserve of the rich who can fund Sebastian's year in Paris.

[titchy]

Turninara the average university also has a turnover in excess of £150m. How much do you think someone in charge of that much should earn?

[Maursh]

Can't find a reference on it, but yesterday one of the Cambridge dons claimed "there would always be funding for high quality research" and poor quality research [shrug] says it all...

[BurnTheBlackSuit]

Slightly to the side of the referendum, but why isn't the EU funding research into developing new antibiotics?

(Or are they funding this research secretly? Because no one has ever mentioned it)

If anything would be good for the EU to fund, that would be it.

[Just5minswithDacre]

"The signatories include Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and Bristol"

Purlease.

Oxbridge and top research unis think they they will "lose global standing"?

[AgnetaTheViking]

BurnTheBlackSuit

They are funding that type of research.

ec.europa.eu/research/health/index.cfm?pg=area&areaname=amdr

[Just5minswithDacre]

Oxford and Cambridge struggled as the worst unis in the world until the 70's, when EU entry turned them into world-beaters.
On Friday, if we leave, they will drop down the rankings to the bottom.

Quite

[Just5minswithDacre]

Although I think you'll find Oxford and Cambridge were actually polytechnics until Brussels kindly awarded them full university status Carol

[notamummy10]

There's also this one: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-an-open-letter-to-uk-voters-from-leaders-of-96-british-universities-a7092511.html]

[lakeswimmer]

Given that 17 of the top 25 unis are in the US I can't really get to grips with the argument that, if we're not in the EU, then UK universities will be doomed which I've seen bandied about recently.

If being in the EU makes so much difference why aren't there any other Unis from EU countries in the top 25 apart from the UK ones?

[titchy]

Given that teaching and research scores both form part of the global rankings, and Brexit harms both, a fall down the global rankings is inevitable. The US university system is extremely well funded, tens or hundreds times that of UK universities - that's how they manage to keep themselves top globally.

Money talks, even in Higher Education. Lose a source of it, and life becomes much more difficult.

[smallfox1980]

I really don't understand this. If the experts in running universities say that there are risks to universities of leaving why don't people believe them?

This debate seems to have gone the way of people deriding anyone who says something that might be against their opinion.