To feel nervous - does anyone know what the 13 Universities facing closure are?

[josben]

DS1 and DS2 are both planning to start Uni in September, and I have just read this article which is very unsettling - does anyone have any idea of what uni's in the below article will be facing closure ?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53280965

I'd guess at the old polytechnics.
Although I know absolutely nothing.

@Beebityboo

Keep on eye on it. Maybe there’ll be no news, or good news before September.

If the course goes ahead and you really can’t relocate or commute to anywhere else you might as well seriously consider starting, regardless. If you end up with a CertHE after one year, with an okay grade, you’ll have the option to transfer straight onto the second year of a similar course elsewhere. If you still can’t relocate at that point, at least you’ll have a Uni certificate until you can reconsider it all.

Every university should have a student protection plan as to what will happen if the university is financially unviable. Unfortunately many of these plans were written pre-covid and are not really fit for purpose. They will be available on their websites

Yes higher ranking universities can attract students from lower ranking but a cap has been put on the number of students any one university can accept with high fines for going over that number

So if a university has a high proportion of international students, and they lose a lot of them, they will need more than 1:1 replacement with UK students to make up the lost international income but won't be able to so that.

Higher ranking' universities are no less likely to be financially affected than than low ranking ones just because of their rankings. What matters most if their financial robustness until now and possibly the reliance on international student income. Many other factors will also be important, being a 'posh' university is unlikely to be a significant 'saving factor'

I know staff who work at Manchester uni who have been laid off. They rely hugely on international students.

Well, that sounds like the end of Derby ... the mistake so many made was to call themselves universities in the first place and imagine they could justify the same fees as the majors

@yellowsunset

As long the unis have a semblance of an academic standard you have nothing to worry about.

It's not nearly as simple as that and it's not just universities, all kinds of higher education providers are facing difficulties due to Covid. Some of them were struggling before which has made it worse.

I work in HE and no one will be publishing an official list it will cause a huge loss of confidence in the sector. All providers registered with the OfS have to have a student protection plan in the case of course closures and no provider would cease operating without an organised market exit plan focused on the outcomes for students.

In other words, don't panic.

All providers registered with the OfS have to have a student protection plan in the case of course closures and no provider would cease operating without an organised market exit plan focused on the outcomes for students.

Is that typically to cover one year and get students to an exit award point? Or 3/4 years and enable them to complete the programmes they originally registered for? (Picturing tumbleweed blowing across campuses if they were long phasing outs!)

Also to say that many universities are facing millions and millions in lost income just this summer with the closing of campuses and accommodation, which generate quite a bit of revenue over the summer months. We will know how many more millions they will lose next year, around the end of October time when the final numbers of enrolled students from all sources are finally clear. Expect announcements of possible closures around the end of this year or the beginning of the next

I think its more than campus whispers...my son read out an email about redundacies last week...ive just popped upstairs to ask him again and he said he is certain the uni is in trouble.

Might it be possible that there are too many Uni's for the student demand on them?..

This is what happens when you try to run a business, acting like a business, pretending to be charity and run by academics who don't understand business.

Academics shouldn't have to understand business, unless that's what they're teaching. Universities should be run as research institutes and centres of education, not businesses.

@myusernamewastakenbyme

I think its more than campus whispers...my son read out an email about redundacies last week...ive just popped upstairs to ask him again and he said he is certain the uni is in trouble.

Oh I didn’t mean it dismissively. I take that much more seriously if it’s coming from on campus. I was thinking the alternative was it was gossip arising from the interminable inter-Uni rivalry (C’bury being a two and a bit uni city).

I would take less seriously if someone from CCCU was gossiping about UKC or vice versa.

All providers registered with the OfS have to have a student protection plan in the case of course closures and no provider would cease operating without an organised market exit plan focused on the outcomes for students

Is that typically to cover one year and get students to an exit award point? Or 3/4 years and enable them to complete the programmes they originally registered for? (Picturing tumbleweed blowing across campuses if they were long phasing outs!)

It varies but most of them mention transferring students to other institutions. It is not practical to continue teaching out to current students for prolonged periods when the provider is bankrupt. Also what kind of experience would that be for student? The government has already said they won't bail out universities so it is difficult to know what will happen

As I said many student protection plans are not really fit for purpose at the moment, though some are better than others. Maybe check those out for the university you will be going to and ask them for clarity of their plans are not detailed enough .

Lots of unis (inc high ranking) have been running voluntary severance schemes since covid. I think RG will be hit badly due too loss of international students but most have reserves - though not all, it's well known that a couple seriously cooked their books to meet the RG criteria (which were never about teaching quality despite the excellent marketing).

It is not practical to continue teaching out to current students for prolonged periods when the provider is bankrupt. Also what kind of experience would that be for student?

That’s what I thought. Thanks.

The government has already said they won't bail out universities so it is difficult to know what will happen

As I said many student protection plans are not really fit for purpose at the moment, though some are better than others.

Interesting times, eh?

Might it be possible that there are too many Uni's for the student demand on them?..

What sort of question is that? Of course there are in the current environment. There will be likely be fewer students temporarily, plus universities have temporarily lost a lot of income streams as well . Up until COVID there weren't too many universities and there won't be after this has passed but there is likely to be a shrinkage in provider numbers

There is also likely to be reduction in the demand for apprenticeships as people in apprenticeships need to be employed and with fewer people employed,there will be fewer employers wiling to invest money in training their employees (in the very short term anyway) .

I'd guess at the old polytechnics
Although I know absolutely nothing

You're right - you do know nothing. I know of a couple of ex-polytechnics who are in far better financial shape that their Russell Group neighbours.

I work at a different ex-poly and we are one of the most financially secure universities in the UK and have been for years.

It's been 28 years since polytechnics were granted university status. Time to move on .......

It isn't going to be as simple as RG unis taking all the students from other universities as there has been a cap on student numbers to introduced to stop that exact thing from happening.

There were 2 or 3 rumoured to be in serious enough financial difficulty around Spring 2019 and I remember looking at some rankings then, although nothing confirmed (TES, if I remember correctly).
I think that fees and intake from this September will have a significant and direct relationship on the question of redundancies. I can imagine that some courses may be cut even if the university itself is not in as much danger as comparable institutions.

UCAS have said that applications from foreign students outside the EU are up 12%. Deferrals are actually down, and the deficit in EU applications is only 6%. Overall, the numbers look very much like they did at this time last year - in fact, slightly higher.
www.ucas.com/corporate/news-and-key-documents/news/rise-number-students-planning-start-university-autumn

In 2017–18, there were 458,490 international students studying at UK higher education institutions, accounting for 19.6% of the total student population in the UK. 14% of all undergraduates and 35.8% of all postgraduates were international

How many will still come here in a CV world? and Sino UK relations are deteriorating, then there is a no deal brexit looming.

I've a friend working in a Russell group uni (estates) & they are worried.

But at least it will help the housing problem, towns like Plymouth have invested very heavily in student accomodation.

Interested to see the old snobbery about polys coming up! Most have them have really strong links with industry and excellent research and innovation capability.

I believe SOAS is one: www.theguardian.com/education/2020/may/29/soas-empire-school-of-oriental-and-african-studies-language-study-uk

I don't understand the stigma piled on polytechnics. I went to a former polytech and got my vocational first class engineering degree. The teaching standard was superb, the student support etc was amazing. I had a great experience there. I went on to do a postgrad at a more prestigious uni to allow myself to work towards chartership and the experience was nothing like as good - fortunately, I only had to do a year there. I now work for one of the top companies in my field so it certainly hasn't done me a disservice. Nobody looks at the name of the university and turns their nose up at it or assumes I'm not as qualified as anyone else!

The issue is the Russell group / better Uni’s will just lower their grade boundaries and the kids who would have gone to the Uni’s only needing ‘C C D’ type grades will just go to the more prestigious ones leaving no one to go to the less difficult to get into ones, surely ? I know people like to say Russell group isn’t every thing, their kid goes to a Met / smaller/newer uni and it’s amazing, great facilities etc, but if you could go to Uni of Liverpool or Liverpool Hope, you’d be mad to choose Hope

@Fanthorpe some of them do, undoubtedly. Some of them are basically an FE college that changed its name. I’ve been to three Uni’s and I think there is a definite difference in expectation and attainment