Page 6 | AIBU to think university executives should not be paid so much that the uni can't afford lecturers

melisande · 2026-07-01T20:22:07+00:00

AIBU to expect that the uni my DS might go to should not pay their execs so much that they can't afford to pay lecturers and profs and are making them redundant: [[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2djnz3y47o News story on cuts at Exeter]]; same thing happening at Hertfordshire and Sussex. Exeter UCU says that if the 16 highest paid execs at that uni capped their salary at £120k, they'd save more money than all the planned cuts to archaeology and history.

PinkEasterbunny · 02/07/2026 06:54

Who do you think the top execs are? They are vice chancellors, pro vice chancellors and deans all of whom are academic staff. And also why do you think that university execs don't deserve to be well paid? For the most part they are vastly experienced and respected professionals. Universities are not run by philosophy lecturers. If they were we'd all be in trouble

Totally agree @Downplayit

concertinacornflake · 02/07/2026 06:53

Downplayit · 01/07/2026 21:31

Who do you think the top execs are? They are vice chancellors, pro vice chancellors and deans all of whom are academic staff. And also why do you think that university execs don't deserve to be well paid? For the most part they are vastly experienced and respected professionals. Universities are not run by philosophy lecturers. If they were we'd all be in trouble. The issue is the lack of demand for arts and humanities subjects because of the high fees. Universities are forced to be financially independent so have a right to cut courses that make a loss. I'm not saying this isn't sad but it is sensible.

Some execs somewhere will have started as philosophy lecturers!
What's wrong with philosophy lecturers anyway??

AlphaApple · 02/07/2026 06:51

melisande · 01/07/2026 23:46

I agree that lazy narratives are no use, but if you read the article and read elsewhere, you'll see that they're cutting courses which have been recruiting very successfully, there isn't lack of demand, nor is the University of Exeter in any financial trouble. And if you ask employers, you'll see that they're keen to hire Humanities students because they have really good critical thinking and writing skills. The lazy narrative is that STEM subjects are the only 'useful' ones when the creative industries in the UK contributed £124 billion in gross value added (GVA) in 2023, accounting for 5.2% of the total UK economy and the sector has shown significant growth, outperforming the overall economy in recent years. And the UK university system itself has been a unique strength in the UK economy: the total economic impact of UK higher education was estimated at around £265 billion in the 2021–22 academic year - and that is* *currently being trashed by poor uni management, government inattention and populist politically motivated cuts to foreign students. In the first two months of 2026, 56,396 jobs were flagged at risk for redundancy in the sector, all this while the government is happy to shout about stepping in to save 1,500 jobs in the steel industry. And think about all the areas where the local university is a key employer, and central to the wider local economy. All of that is at risk if this continues.

Universities can’t and shouldn’t wait until they are “in trouble” before making changes. They can see that unless they do something, operating costs will exceed income in a few short years. Exeter’s surplus is wafer thin as it is.

I read extensively on this topic as it is part of my profession. It does you no favours to cherry pick the information sources that suit your narrative.

Creative industries are indeed extremely valuable and as well as the points you make, a source of considerable soft power for the UK internationally. The government’s undermining of HE is exceptionally short sighted. It’s never been an election issue but perhaps you should raise it with your MP.

Summerhillsquare · 02/07/2026 06:43

Well said OP.

Tonissister · 02/07/2026 06:38

You are SO not being unreasonable. I have had emails in the past month from eight different members of full time admin staff at a uni I teach at, asking me to design and run courses. None of the lecturers I know are full time. If they can afford 8 full time admin staff in one department, you'd think they could stretch to a few full time teaching staff posts.

Original poster

melisande · 02/07/2026 06:14

I agree it's all very complicated, but In 2024-2025 the base salary for VCs rose by 5% to £350,500 - in the context of university funding crises and real terms pay cuts for everyone else, this is not appropriate. And no, tuition fees don't remotely cover the costs of education, and many VCs have made poor decisions about investments and spending on expensive buildings - that's why universities need a new public funding model and proper attention from the government. However you look at it, the answer is not mass redundancies for staff.

Struggling university selling £80m 'vanity project' campus

Unions criticised the 'vanity project' as being partly to blame for hundreds of job cuts

https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/nottingham-news/university-nottingham-selling-80m-campus-10675585

OP posts:

TwoLeftSocksWithHoles · 02/07/2026 06:00

Having read the true-life exposé 'Porterhouse Blue' by Tom Sharpe I tend to agree with both sides of the augment

I hope that helps.

ViciousCurrentBun · 02/07/2026 05:52

DH friend works at The University of Nottingham and they are making 600 staff redundant. They have already had a round of voluntary redundancies as his friend wanted to apply but was a bit too young to take his pension. DH took redundancy from a different University around a year ago and he was a STEM Professor and head of department. His dept had to cut 3 posts and he was eligible for his pension so took it, between us we have 6 friends who have taken VR from three different Universities since 2021.

To give an indication of costs. A student damaged the lens of DH specialist microscope. It cost 30k to repair I’m unsure how much that microscope cost but it was in the hundreds of thousands. Controversial but tuition fees don’t cover costs at all. A lot over expanded and went mad with building works as well
Many people that move up in to the higher levels of University management are actually not good at it. They are academics and that means experts in an academic field it doesn’t mean they make good business decisions.

KreakyCnees · 02/07/2026 00:00

I am so sad at what’s happening with universities and funding. How do we sort it out? Why do we need all these caps on foreign students? They seem to actually value UK universities and their degrees, unlike successive UK govs.. I don’t understand this mad anti intellectual culture that we seem to have just when we desperately need an educated workforce and nigher education has expanded so successfully. We’ve got more UK graduates than we’ve ever had, universities should be a success story. Why can’t we be proud of them and why can’t the gov support them?

Original poster

melisande · 01/07/2026 23:46

I agree that lazy narratives are no use, but if you read the article and read elsewhere, you'll see that they're cutting courses which have been recruiting very successfully, there isn't lack of demand, nor is the University of Exeter in any financial trouble. And if you ask employers, you'll see that they're keen to hire Humanities students because they have really good critical thinking and writing skills. The lazy narrative is that STEM subjects are the only 'useful' ones when the creative industries in the UK contributed £124 billion in gross value added (GVA) in 2023, accounting for 5.2% of the total UK economy and the sector has shown significant growth, outperforming the overall economy in recent years. And the UK university system itself has been a unique strength in the UK economy: the total economic impact of UK higher education was estimated at around £265 billion in the 2021–22 academic year - and that is* *currently being trashed by poor uni management, government inattention and populist politically motivated cuts to foreign students. In the first two months of 2026, 56,396 jobs were flagged at risk for redundancy in the sector, all this while the government is happy to shout about stepping in to save 1,500 jobs in the steel industry. And think about all the areas where the local university is a key employer, and central to the wider local economy. All of that is at risk if this continues.

OP posts:

CraftyNavySeal · 01/07/2026 21:39

If history and archaeology lecturers want to keep their jobs there needs to be enough students to pay for them.

Unpopular courses get cut all the time, even in countries where uni is free. It’s unreasonable to expect their colleagues to take a pay cut to keep lecturers employed in subjects people don’t want to study.

AlphaApple · 01/07/2026 21:39

Higher education funding is a shitshow. The UK spends the second lowest amount of public funding on HE out of all OECD countries. This is a structural problem and while it’s tempting to trot out the “fat cat VCs” trope, their salaries are not the problem.

This has been brewing for a decade. Brexit, Covid and CoL crisis has accelerated it. Every single university in the UK has shed staff in the last 3-5 years. Exeter is no different.

Downplayit · 01/07/2026 21:31

Who do you think the top execs are? They are vice chancellors, pro vice chancellors and deans all of whom are academic staff. And also why do you think that university execs don't deserve to be well paid? For the most part they are vastly experienced and respected professionals. Universities are not run by philosophy lecturers. If they were we'd all be in trouble. The issue is the lack of demand for arts and humanities subjects because of the high fees. Universities are forced to be financially independent so have a right to cut courses that make a loss. I'm not saying this isn't sad but it is sensible.