Should struggling universities be supported or allowed to fail?

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3p93j3823o

25 universities are at risk of bankruptcy. What is the answer here? Should they be supported by the government to keep going? Should they be allowed to fail and the whole university sector be restructured?

I feel like we will end up with only mega universities offering popular courses, and the smaller universities with more niche subjects will disappear. This seems to go against everything that academia should be about, and feels like we will end up with just corporate academia left.

What is the purpose of universities? It looks more and more like it is to make money, not to create knowledgeable skilled students, and to extend our understanding of the world. How did we get here?

I think we need restructuring. But it's a massive job. Too many kids go to uni, taking on huge loans, and the graduate-level jobs are not there when they finish.

But how to get there? We'd need some kind of phasing-out of courses or unis I guess. And what about all the tens of thousands of staff? It needs someone cleverer than me to figure it out.

Meanwhile they are building many student accommodation blocks in my city, which I think will be white elephants in 5-10 years.

Oh, and the plan needs to include stronger moves to cut out AI, so that graduates actually learn what they are supposed to learn. Back to pen and paper in exams?

"How did we get here?"

Politicians wanting to expand the uni sector, to keep unemployment numbers down, and to compete in the global market by upping skills levels - but at the expense of the excess students who should never have been at uni.

I think the HE sector is too large. Too many students attending courses for random reasons that won't help there future prospects.

So many times of my students have drifted onto my course, they shouldn't be their , they are wasting their time and money. The degree has become the default option when it's not a good fit for so many students, with the corresponding mental health crisis.

But it's a big problem to undo, gov policy since the 90s has been about expanding HE. In many towns and cities the university is the only thing keeping the lights on in terms of jobs and investment. Allowing unis to go bust is going to be devastating in some locations.

A smarter wind down could happen, where caps go back in and alternative options need to come on line...short courses, apprenticeships...t
Rather then so many being funnelled into degrees. The issue is HE is propping up a vast part of the UK economy, if it fails thats bad. But is also unfair for students to bear so much of the costs.

Ultimately the gov has to realise that unis are important and worth finding, but the open door recruitment policy is a disaster. Unis need to be allowed to be smaller without financial ruin and alternative options need to exist

This is a fascinating if unwieldy topic. I had hoped for lots of replies to inform my own thinking on this complex question.

The sector is in a hell of a mess, much but not all of it self inflicted.

The sector seems to be trying to balance education whilst trying to be a business.

It can't be a business and get education sector protection.

What I think should happen is that the lower standard universities should close or merge or even better pivot to FE. Govt should not prop up failing universities that are not delivering high quality research and education. There should be a massive investment into FE and a big effort to raise the profile and status of trades and guilds. I think the govt should pump money into the elite universities to support research and teaching improvements and loosen visa restrictions for the overseas students to come to those elite institutions. In an ideal world every child who wanted to would attend a good university and graduate into a buoyant economy but that isn’t the world we live in.

The failing ones are mostly ex-polys, aren't they?

So, yes, we should go back to fewer, better universities. Like we used to have.

If universities are going to operate as commercial businesses, opening subsidiaries overseas, accepting higher revenue foreign students over equally qualified UK. ones, enabling immigration scams & paying their CEOs (sorry VCs) like normal corporates then they should be allowed to fail like other businesses.

If they want the taxpayer to bail them out when they get into financial difficulties then they should start behaving like British education institutions for British young people.

I think since early 1990's the mantra of going to university has been well sold by the universities and our governments. The universities have been well funded, have found a gold mine in foreign students, and have learned to live a luxurious life with spending and resources most colleges and schools could only dream of.

I personally think that we need to allow some to fail. We should look to cull weaker university courses and cut numbers attending. We should instead invest in colleges (who get about half the funding, but in my experience deliver a better learning and support experience).

Universities are not golden cows, and while horrid for the staff we have address an oversupply of places, a luxurious funding / fee arrangement, and the future needs of a workforce and nation rather than protect a few jobs and middle-class kids.

Yes but if they are to operate as businesses they need to be able to make business decisions - i.e., decide how much to charge for their services. At the moment UK universities have to educate UK students at way below cost - it costs more to educate them than the fees cover. That is why foreign students are so important - unis can choose what to charge them. I think the government either needs to allow them to be businesses and charge for their services or they need to keep fees low and subsidise them properly.

yes, I think they should be allowed to fail. Many others might merge, or move to technical courses like podiatry or nursing only; some might move online only (thinking of business schools as an example). The key though is that currently too many students go to university and too many places act as visa mills and over-charge international students for a crappy course. they should be allowed to fail imo

They should be allowed to fail, like any failing business is allowed to fail. Why are unis this sacred class of institution? It's ridiculous. IMO we have FAR too many universities, evidenced by the fact that a huge proportion of our student body is from overseas. Why do we need to educate half the world? We don't.

The UK birth rate after 2012 has dropped a lot so in another few years the number of unis struggling to attract students will rise, so unless the govt is going to bail them out (something it can ill afford to do) or they are allowed to attract yet more overseas students (not desirable, because students make up a decent proportion of illegal overstayers), they have to be allowed to fail.

We don’t need to educate half the world, but education is a massive export and contributes hugely to the UK economy - as well as subsidising UK students so fees can be kept at less than cost. It also generates huge amounts of soft power through the cultural exchange aspect. It’s such an advantage for Britain, limiting it would be crazy

FWIW, 7/24 of the Russell Group universities are currently in deficit, including Cambridge and Durham.

Cambridge is still filthy rich, especially when College wealth is included, so the picture is complex.

I agree with the idea that the lower standard universities should merge or close and should be a massive pivot towards FE courses. FE is so undervalued and underfunded.

I also strongy believe a thriving university sector that holds is own on the international stage is of huge strategic importance to the uk. We dont export much now. My towns university supports a research park and a hospital. the ability to attract overseas talent and students who spend money locally basically keeps the whole local economy buoyant. So much more so than city finance money. Which seems to go abroad.

Sorry what - evidenced by the fact that a huge proportion of the student body is from overseas? That’s hilariously just demonstrated the exact opposite of what you want.

Replace uni and student with car maker and car: ‘There are far too many car makers in the UK, evidenced by the fact that a huge proportion of car buyers are from
overseas. Why should we provide cars to the rest of the world!’

Maybe have another think.

Universities may or may not struggle further as the low birth cohort comes of age, but I agree with @titchy : evidence that your product is desirable to others is hardly a sign of weakness or poor quality.

At the moment Overseas students are keeping many of our STEM courses, even excellent ones, afloat.

But if that export is now failing, as is the case with the two universities closest to me, then should we prop up fees that are 3x what a UK student pays?
Sorry, but we have to compete on quality education and price
My own sons experience of UK universities (including one 'premier' one) has been poor. Pre-recorded lectures from US university, lecturers not turning up or not marking coursework (3x compensatable fails!), old course content on a robotics, mechatronics and AI course, shitty overpriced halls with water leaks and broken kitchen that cost £800 a month for the pleasure, lots of extra fees for doing geography coursework that was required, poor support for learning with an arrogant 'we expect 60% of learning to be independent' but no support to get there, and all sorts of other issues....
Meanwhile other son went to college. Had huge support from day one, a real progression to independent learning, lecturers commitment noticeable right through pandemic, and fantastic semi-sheltered new halls with space and comfort for £600 a month...
So my view is Universities are used to a luxurious lifestyle, a captive market, and a government policy that has supported both those for 20 years, partly out of fear of the universities.
FWIW, my local university is laying of hundreds of staff while sitting on a profit last two years of over £7m, wider capital and savings over £120m, and they are pressuring staff to price up work at crazy levels - like £8k a DAY income for running training courses...

This sounds grim and morally wrong.

University students are supposed to transition to independent learning, with (in theory) several hours of independent study for every hour in a supervised setting. Done right, it is incredibly liberating: I still remember the excitement of transitioning to learning best directly from textbooks (ad we then had) and personal experiments. The sense of agency is incredible.

But done right is the phrase. It takes a lot of work from academic staff . Also, students need to embrace the opportunity and TBH we are seeing less sense of initiative overall in recent years.

So the independent learning aspect is complex. I support the goal and point out that today’s students who do not are missing something important, but acknowledge that it isn’t always done well.

It seems your other DC got more support with this transition at college, but it is difficult to compare across environments.

I don’t think supporting universities (a tricky question to me) is primarily about propping up access for Overseas students .

I don’t dispute anything else in your post, sadly.

Not really. Compare MMU for example with uni of Nottingham .in some cases I think the location of the uni also plays a part .

Plenty of RG are in a bad way, or trying to prevent a crisis

Who is going to be brave and say which of the RGs are trying to prevent a crisis?

I'm a secondary teacher, not a lecturer, but I think universities should diversify. Bring back the technical college approach, run apprenticeships, allow 15 and 16 year olds in to learn a trade. Schools don't have the room but some universities might.

I mark thousands of UG and PG scripts a year (Russell group) and more and more of that is heavily AI produced, the majority in fact. Something needs to change.

Well lots of them. Eg It is well known that Edinburgh, which is pretty healthy financially, has imposed a permanent, global 10% budget cut to avert an operational deficit. And they have one of the largest endowments in the UK.

They launched a Voluntary Severance scheme as part of this and AFAIK Compulsory Severance has not been taken off the table.

A number of RGs are now talking similarly. Nottingham is running a big deficit, Lancaster is in trouble, Sheffield is running a deficit.

These are just off the top of my head. Sadly people should not particularly avoid them, because (a) these are good unis and (b) there are so many more.

With the way the funding for students works ie MC parent having to pay up to 5 k a year per child(whilst potentially still paying own student loans off) there is likelihood more parents advisong their kids against going.

Personally think an increase in courses and entry requirements which are more standard across UK to enable students to live at home if they want. (An increase in sen students currently at school who maybe bright but wouldnt cope living away).
The course i did 25 years ago was run well, but… especially the programming on the business course was well behind what was being used we did fortran.
similarly dp did a different version of CAD and there were no jobs in that it was all Autocad. So had to immediately retrain!!

The push by gov for science and maths etc probably means there are fewer students in other fields.

For uni surely they also need to remove coursework due to AI..?