Question for any university employees

[MumblesParty]

Just reading the news about Cardiff uni, among others, having to make redundancies and cut courses. This is apparently due to dropping numbers of international students. Students tuition fees are £9500 per year. They have about 9 hours of lectures per week. Can anyone explain where the costs are? I’m not being argumentative, I would genuinely like to know why it costs so much to run a university. I’ve googled, and it seems the biggest cost is teaching. But I know lecturers aren’t paid much. So where does the money go?

@PicturePlace working 9-6 is enough to have a ‘stellar’ career?
I think the discipline and institution will be of huge significance here. For example, in a post-92 institution only 11% of my workload is assigned to research. The rest is teaching and admin. (Standard SL contract, not teaching focused). Therefore, in order to accrue any academic currency (publications etc) I have to do this in my own time. So, the only way for me to pursue any dream of a stellar career is to work way beyond 9-6. I know I’m not the only one in this scenario.

But 11% of your time is around 175 hours a year - surely you are using that to do research and publish?

You will have 185 hours for "scholarship" in your wbm also (UCU mandated). That's another 11%+ to use as you like (I use mine for more research). You do have to be disciplined and manage your time well.

@PicturePlace The 11% is research AND scholarship. Full time members of staff are given 175 hrs for this full stop. there’s no additional 185 at my institution, never has been.
And because the time assigned to other tasks (routine teaching prep, marking assessments) is woefully inadequate, day to day work eats into this 175, making it pretty meaningless. Therefore, it’s not that I’m not disciplined. But I’m happy for you to carry that superiority complex if it makes you feel good about yourself.

University finance person here who did the annual costing return to office for students.

Lots of costs as many people have mentioned....

Biggest cost is staff, and those unis in the TPS are really crippled with the massive pensions.

Big fancy expensive buildings with loads of non teaching space financed by loans (needing interest repayments) with far too much office space. I am not sure why academics need individual large offices or why we need professional service space which is half used under hybrid working.

Increasing costs for student support (some of which are regulatory and some to fill gaps where nhs can't)

Research / Post graduate research - all basically done at a loss and that is before academics actually include the real time they spend doing it. More research = bigger losses.

Some academics & professional services work hard, others really don't but generally there is a lack of support to tackle this.

Selling off of accomm to fund new buildings that would have generated a reasonable surplus to reinvest.

All the above subsidised by overseas students who now are being lured by other countries or by better provision in country ( eg china) or had visa changes which make us less attractive.

All the above hoping to be solved by more people in very overpaid senior management delegating work downwards to more stretched faculties & professional services....

Big sigh ....

Finance not a fun place to be!

My place built new buildings with enormous atriums. An atrium wastes so much space because you've got thin air where several floor worth of computer clusters, labs, seminar rooms, etc could be.

At Oxford, the costs of testing and interviews and admissions decision making alone are making up a hefty chunk of those first year fees! Including costs for all the people we don't accept.

Oxford not in any danger of going bust. But you'd be amazed how much the whole process costs!

We've got this VR suite that is hardly ever used.

That will not have been cheap.