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

The University that I work at has been very open with staff in that we are facing a huge deficit this year. Probably about £20million. All promotions and pay inceases have been cancelled, as has research leave. At the moment they are hoping to avoid redundancies but they are not ruling it out. So similar to other industries to be honest. Its going to be a tough decade for everyone I think

if you could go to Uni of Liverpool or Liverpool Hope, you’d be mad to choose Hope

I had a choice similar to this - I went with the "Hope" one for my undergraduate - it had smaller classes and I am super shy. I did both my MSc and PhD at Russell Groups and whilst I liked the PhD years I was absolutely miserable during my Masters. Shit teaching, shit course, no pastoral care for Masters students, some really awful lecturers as well.

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

Yes this is true , however there are a couple if issues with just looking at this information for reassurance. A lot of research with both UK and international students suggests that international undergraduate students (at least half of whom don't apply through UCAS) are less happy about online study being a big part of the first term at least than UK ones and are more likely to defer.

The real issues however is with postgraduate international students (again most of whom don't apply through UCAS) which make up a big chunk of revenue. Unsurprisingly, they really don't want to come and do a one year MA or MSc and have half of that delivered online so are more likely to defer or to look at other countries who are possibly offering more face to fact teaching .

UCAS data does not cover even half of applications from international students so that information is not really reassuring when considering international applications

However I agree that UCAS application numbers for UK students are reassuring. As I said universities will have a better idea of the impact of Covid on student numbers at the end of August after clearing has finished for UK students and then in October when most of the international students who are coming have arrived .

@FlameFartingDragon well that’s great. You’re obviously a very smart person who would have flourished anywhere, though. I personally wouldn’t be happy if my child got AAA* at a level and went to a uni you need one ‘D’ to get into though. I suppose we are all different.

I’d put money on London Met being one. A real Mickey Mouse university & in serious financial difficulty.

@Cheeseislife2020 The course my DS is doing is not offered by any Russell group universities.

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 ?

The Russell Group universities have been doing this for years already (since the government cap on student numbers were removed a few years ago) which is why their cohort sizes are getting bigger and the experience of students at them has generally fallen.

Unfortunately for them, as has already been stated, the cap on student numbers has been reintroduced this year so they won't be able to fill their boots with students at the expense of other universities as much as they have in the last few years.

In fact I'd say the'lower ranking' universities are on the whole probably more , financially diverse and agile than many of the 'higher level ' universities because they have had to be to survive the last few years.

It said in the Times this morning that the majority of the at risk places had fewer than 2,000 students. One has 24,000 though.

I know that my uni in the midlands is on its knees, financially. They are considering getting rid of humanities subjects and focus on the engineering and business degrees.

A lot of my friends have been laid off.

Sad times.

I would be surprised if many students take gap years this year. The opportunities for earning money are severely reduced and in the short term long haul travel will not be straightforward. Even short haul travel might be complicated with the Brexit uncertainty. I suspect there will be a last minute flurry of students deciding to go to university this year after all.

@chocolatviennois what is he studying? Must be a very niche course !

@sonicshoegazes is there anyway you would tell me which uni that is? Pm if you'd prefer?

@Cheeseislife2020 - have sent you a message!

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

That may well depend on the Uni you attended and the field you went into
Nobody doubts that some ex-polys are extremely good, but the overall ranking exists for a reason - and in the sector in which I recruited, degress from the bottom 20 were regarded as no degree at all

Sadly, this is what happens when you 'marketise' a university education.

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.

Yup.

Once upon a time, Polytechnics did something different to unis, to a large extent. A prime example was 'the sandwich course', much praised by employers in tech and engineering subjects. You also had Teacher Training Colleges, Schools of Nursing, Colleges of Further Education, etc. You also had Techs as an alternative to sixth form. And you had to be 8 'O' level and 3xC + 'A' level graded to get into a uni.

Now the Techs have dropped that 'shameful' word from their names; and all the rest have become unis.

Of course you're going to get a pretty big difference in a uni that'll take DEU at 'A' level (or even a cobble together of NVQs and 'turning up for work for a couple of years'...), and another that won't look at anything less than A star, A star, A.

But let's not fool ourselves, caught up as we have been in the concept that it's a dereliction of aspiration to attend any HE institution that isn't called 'a uni'.

And in the meantime, many of our young people have been sold a big, expensive pup.

You can shriek snobbery about a cold, dispassionate analysis of the worth of certain 'degrees', in terms of benefitting that student; or the tax-payer who will ultimately be paying for that degree as the student will never earn enough to do so, but it's a reality that some unis are Mickey Mouse, and ditto some degrees.

BBC article

My DS2 is heading to a London ex-poly in Sept to do an arts related subject. He absolutely shouldn't need a degree to get a foot into the professional door, but all the employers are complicit in demanding degrees, for a look-in; all of us are complicit is 'allowing' our DC to clock up £50k debts to get entry into firms who should be providing solid in-house training and block release to college.

Quite a few unis need to fail, but I have every sympathy for those students and innocent employees inevitably caught up in that. And yes, some of the unis in financial difficulties may be RG, dazzled by the Chinese yen into building every flashier baubles to attract them.

But the VC can shove her £250k pa salary.....

I work for a non-Russel group University in the Midlands that is doing well and luckily has a surplus. It is definitely not going under. So probably a different institution to the one mentioned upthread.

I do wonder if Reading is one of them, they were having issues with finances before lockdown according to local newspapers.
I hope not, it's nice having a uni in the town with children and the students are for the most part lovely.

*Russell - damn autocorrect!

Puzzled "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"

Oh yes they do, oh yes.

Many companies discard applicants purely on the basis of the uni attended, then on the level of degree obtained.

It was this 'all post 18 education is equal' nonsense that got us into this Blair inspired nonsense in the first place.

@Cheeseislife2020 there was always a difference between FE colleges and polytechnics, everyone just ‘moved up’ to uni status, not all of them got accreditation to award degrees though, which is important.

I work for a university that is at the Russell Group end of the scale and things are going to be tough but, as far as I'm aware, we've not had any concerns about future viability. Indeed, I've heard it from several sources that we're better off than some in this situation as we are a research-intensive institution and we have reasonable reserves. Yes, we'd be hit by the drop in international students but the government has announced a support programme in the last few weeks to cover these losses (it's linked to in the BBC article in the OP). And yes things are going to be tight for a while - there is mention of redundancies but other measures are being considered first o avoid where possible. Others I know who work in similar level universities are saying the same thing.

If I had to put money on it, I'd say it was smaller (as in lower reserves) and/or regional universities (who aren't always as attractive to students - IIRC a recent Guardian article referenced several in the Midlands) who are most at risk, especially those who don't do a great deal of research as this is the other main income stream after students. SOAS seems to have been badly hit too.

However I'd be wary of news reports - some of the information in the Guardian article linked above regarding deficits was discredited by the institution involved.

I would be surprised if many students take gap years this year.

Me too, despite what the terrible figures bandied about by the unions have said - not only is it not a good time to be on a Gap Year (opportunities to travel and/or work are likely to be reduced) but there's an increase in the number of 18 year olds for the 21/22 intake year which will lead to increased pressure on places. Deferring this year might not mean a guaranteed place for next year.

They may well be absorbed into other unis with more resources anyway. Especially if there is more than one in the area.

Its true about absorbing other institutions. The University I work for has absorbed another that failed in a different part of the country. Students will get to finish their degrees.

My eldest is due to go to Uni this year and I have advised him to take the place if he is accepted after his results, as his planned deferral might not work due to increased demand next year.

@LadyofTheManners

I wonder if Reading is one of them

No :)

@SweetPetrichor

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!

This is interesting as I had an identical experience. Undergrad at an old poly-fabulous teaching staff always striving for higher standards, passionate about their subjects and strong links to industry. MSc from a Russell Group uni, teaching sub-par, staff spent more time clapping themselves on the back for the uni’s ranking than doing anything to help it stay there. Now a professional in the field which is a speciality of my undergrad uni, I’d have been far better staying there for my MSc as did some of my most respected professional contacts.

The snobbery about old polys is amusing really and says a lot about how totally out of touch some people are with the labour market now. The kind of companies that care about the name of the uni and the contacts made while there, more than the quality of the education and practical experience, are dying out fast and will soon be a thing of the past. I hope!