Should struggling universities be supported or allowed to fail?

[LCM001a]

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?

For me the thing I find difficult is how you do this without a great effect on those who are now at the universities that I think should close or merge.

If that can be minimised or overcome, then I think there are a number of places that should close. There also has to be an end to dependence on overseas students.

I worked on the turnaround plan for one of those 25- which is unfortunately a thriving industry.

some need to fail yes. There are too many universities, and for those who can’t support themselves we really need to look at and be realistic about what’s lost.

I don’t believe most of them should be bailed out, unfortunately

There are lots of threads about group work. So many things can go wrong! I don’t like it except is rather special circumstances.

But the English exams are generally pretty secure (there is an occasional breach). The problem IMO is that the thresholds are too low and one can cram for the exams.

This combination means you can arrive in the UK a few months after taking them woefully underprepared. If you find a friendship circle speaking your native language, the problem perpetuates itself.

One cannot really fault the students, insofar as they are playing by the rules. The sector needs to strengthen our English requirements. But no one will make the first move alone, and there won’t be joint action during this crisis.

75% is huge. How do the UK students get a chance to get in?! And more limited chance of natural friendships for UK students within the year group.

That’s terrible. I had no idea.

I think it is terrible too. I know why universities have done it, but I don't like it. My pal at UCL tells me she is now unable to ask questions of the student group in tutorials or semianrs as so many can't speak English well enough to answer. This of course means the education of the Brits in the room suffers as there is no discussion as a set. this is happening everywhere.

My understanding is that about 2/3 of the Imperial Maths UG cohort is Overseas.

All the top universities in the Western world have strong Overseas cohorts, and so should we. But students come to the UK for a British education, so yes it can go too far.

I do not believe that Imperial accepts Overseas students of a lower calibre than Home students. But there are so very many absolute top students, particularly in Asia, that it could fill all of its programmes several times over with ace students. How are they selected?

It would not be shocking to know that when all else is equal, Overseas students receive some extra consideration.

Most British universities, even selecting ones like mine, will now admit Overseas students somewhat more readily than Home students. For us the disparity is minimal but for msny ut is marked.

No one really believes this is justifiable. It is a survival tactic.

There are a significant number of students that cannot speak English well at all on some courses. I have direct experience of this it's true.

75% isn’t the overall rate at Imperial - a genuinely elite university based on global rankings (which have their flaws of course).

However all the data is published, open for anyone to look at, though those pesky facts will spoil the narratives some seem to pedal.

Imperial 24/25 academic year. 43% of undergrads international, no doubt some courses with a higher proportion, some lower.

At postgrad level, for Imperial, it’s 71%.

whilst at undergrad level at Imperial the undergrad international percentage is towards the higher end given its location - London, a global city - and international standing the figure is not hugely surprising.

A bit lower than UCL or LSE, a bit higher than KCL.

in contrast, undergrad percentages at

Cambridge 21%

Oxford 20%

Durham 25%

Bristol 23%

Edinburgh 31%

Manchester 33%

Exeter 18%

Nottingham 12%

York 10%

Warwick 25%

Southampton 22%

Birmingham 22%

Newcastle 14%

Eyebrows maybe raised by

Coventry 41%

Hertfordshire 33%

Sunderland 35% (presumably driven by its London campus)

Though I would add that almost 75% of Imperial’s undergrad fee income comes from international undergrads.

Well 43% still seems massive to me. Manchester 33%! A full third of places gone.

So do the International students have to pass an interview too, as well as achieve the equivalent grade requirements?

What if Johnny from Skipton ticks the boxes for the projected grades (etc), as does X from China, what do the admissions folk do then?

I have never had cause to go down a rabbit hole re international students, but this has opened my eyes. Yes, I’ve heard the Uni’s rely on their fee income.

Here is the financial status of the 24 russell group unis

24. Imperial College London – £141.9 million surplus
25. Oxford University – £118.1 million surplus
26. University College London (UCL) – £104 million surplus
27. Manchester University – £84.4 million surplus
28. Bristol University – £68.8 million surplus
29. Glasgow University – £62.4 million surplus
30. King’s College London (KCL) – £57.4 million surplus
31. London School of Economics (LSE) – £50.8 million surplus
32. Edinburgh University – £43 million surplus
33. Queen Mary University of London – £36.1 million
34. Warwick University – £35.9 million surplus
35. York University – £9 million surplus
36. Exeter University – £8.2 million surplus
37. Southampton University – £6.4 million surplus
38. Birmingham University – £6 million surplus

1. Liverpool University – £1.3 million surplus
2. Newcastle University – £3 million deficit

7. Cambridge University – £8 million deficit 6. Leeds University – £8.2 million deficit 5. Durham University – £8.3 million deficit 4. Sheffield University – £11 million deficit 3. Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) – £22.8 million deficit 2. Cardiff University – £33.4 million deficit 1. Nottingham University – £85.3 million deficit

Ranked: All 24 Russell Group Universities by their financial deficits

Sorry the layout went strange when I posted

This is really helpful, thank you.

This.

Do you know how hard it is to find an Alevel maths course outside of school? I’m an adult learner in the process so d retraining (I’m about to start an apprenticeship) and want to increase my maths skills for my engineering role and then go for other positions but nowhere does alevel maths for adults. It’s all functional skills.

how can the country improve and compete as a whole if the resources aren’t there for willing adult learners to gain qualification?

I concur. Some of the students on my course speak and I am utterly baffled by what they’re trying to say. I have two degrees in English but they speak in mistranslated idioms and it’s very confusing. God knows how they’re passing the assessments

Interesting thread - it's all so complex. But I think they should be allowed to fail / close / merge. The fact that there are c25 of them shows that there is a structural issue in the sector. This is being felt everywhere - in their finances, by students in their course experience and by their prospects post-graduation. The market has a series of distortions which means it won't work freely - supply of students has had an enormous bulge, which is unsustainable. It will probably self regulate as costs of attending university spiral + increasing wage to loan gap. I think the international aspect really muddies the waters and far more than I had realised. This thread has really opened my eyes to that. In an ideal world we would be teaching our own young people to be world class, esp in STEM sectors. Under the current system, our young people's education seems to be compromised on many fronts.

It says in the article that over half of the 25 that are at risk of going bust are small providers with less than 3000 students. These arent 'ex Poly's' who always used to offer degrees anyway, they just did a bit less research and concentrated on more technical subjects, but that was the only real difference. But there are some Universities that used to be HE colleges that just should not have been allowed University status and it seems these are the ones that are now in trouble. Maybe some of them do 'niche' courses that would be a shame to lose, and are valued, and maybe those courses could be absorbed into other, bigger local Universities. The issue is that FE is so underfunded and has been for such a long time that some FE and HE colleges decided that rather than get the pittance in funding they get from government for running FE, HND/C courses they would get University status and get more money. Some of them are little more than visa factories, and are now suffering because of the lower levels of international students meaning that they are not able to run dodgy courses recruiting incapable 'students' who manage to pass courses by doing little coursework, paying for the privilege and then claiming asylum.

This is awful, and inexcusable in a country that talks so much about opportunity for all. I am so sorry.

This free article in the Financial Times is interesting, it is only in the comments at the bottom that the immigration aspect is mentioned:

https://www.ft.com/content/e199ae71-f4a2-4abd-9444-de47c456b7ae?syn-25a6b1a6=1

I've just spent a few months on the 6thform reddit topic as my DS was applying for some competitive courses. Very eye opening due to the number of international students asking which couse is best for getting a UK job afterwards. The people advising also made it sound like those who go to Imperial College/LSE/Oxbridge then go on to get the best jobs due to the university's name so it is crucial to balance UK students' needs with international fees from foreign students.

My view is struggling universities should be allowed to fail with current students supported or moved to other universities. Assuming quite a lot of the poor quality courses do not result in the student paying back much of their loan (see article above) then hopefully some money is freed up to help universities that would have gone to the students on the poor quality course but would then not do so.

The large majority of universities are ‘recruiting’ universities’ and will be only too happy to take both Johnny and his Chinese counterpart.

At ‘selecting universities’ it is a different story. At the top, meeting the stated admissions requirements is very far from guaranteeing an offer, particularly for Home students. Oxford and Cambridge say they make no distinction between Home and Overseas and I think this is true; but obviously both make offers to only a small fraction of those with the required PGs. Both use further tests and interviews.

Imperial also weights further tests heavily and claims to make no distinction; I would not bet either way. It is true that many Asian students, the majority of its intake, are superbly prepared for STEM.

Whether or not they use further tests, many top programmes are now making offers in tranches. So (ignoring further tests) if the requirement is A star A A, the first tranche of offers may be to those predicted three A stars or better. After a while and depending how many Firm quickly, a tranche of offers go to those predicted A star A star A. Again depending on results, the rest of this group may get offers and then some with the stated requirements. Some with the stated requirements may simply be rejected and never know why.

In recent years (not this year that I recall) the HE Board has featured several threads about applicants predicted four A stars shut out of Economics/Computer Science. True, they did not Insure properly, but it is still odd enough to suggest that something is wrong with the system.

One doubts this happens very often to Overseas applicants, but that is only a guess. The qualifications seldom align well enough to compare properly, anyway.

I also see this when I’m adjudicating academic offences. The majority are international students who have been caught using AI in coursework (they are I think the tip of a fairly big iceberg)

These students are often unable to discuss how they researched and wrote their assignments even at a quite rudimentary level nor fully understand the questions I ask.

My institution has an existential requirement for international fees and has a recruitment strategy that reflects this. It feels unethical and grubby to take enormous fees from students who are struggling to gain any real value.

The American public universities are funded by individual states. The tuition dichotomy is between in-state and out of state; there is no international category.

A number of states require a certain % of places to be reserved for in-state students in return for the overall support the state provides the university. Or sometimes excellent unis violate the cap and settle for less state funding, gaining in tuition dollars.

Would that be viable in the UK? IMO it would only work with a higher level of direct support from HMG than we have at present.

Russell Group universities have also been protected somewhat because they get a lot more research funding. IIRC the Russell Group get about 75% of the country's research funding. Whereas lower ranked universities are more reliant on their fee income.

The risk there is those small providers will almost certainly work in partnership with other universities who don’t risk assess that they will likely be held responsible for continuing to educate the students.

usually the partnership exists because the subject is niche. I have dealt with the collapse of a music, dance, aviation and industrial engineering partnerships and they were extremely expensive to the university they were partnering with. New courses AND compensation.

It’s a difficult one because “relying on their income” actually means international students are subsidising UK students who pay £9k a year which is loss making for many courses.

so they may compete for spaces but also with it international students there would inevitably fewer spaces for uk students anyway.

its almost a moot point as the tide has pretty much turned on international students seeing the uk as a desirable educational experience- visa issues, quality of learning, opportunities are all contributing to the numbers applying in the first place falling drastically v 10 years ago. They’d rather go to Canada or the EU. Counties like Saudi are getting their own universities so won’t need to send students to the uk.

so whatever problems there are with their being “too many” international students, they’re a declining population and that’s one of the biggest risks to the sector