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

Caps have been in place for quite a while - HEFCE tells universities how many home students they can take.

No they don't. Haven't done since 2015. The only caps are on specific courses that are partially funded by other organizations, such as medicine and dentistry.

And HEFCE doesn't exist any more.

I think it will be the university that takes most international students. Possiblity a lot from China.

I hope that there isnt a problem with Derby @Puzzledandpissedoff, My DS has just finished his first year and I have just paid the deposit for his student accommodation for next year.

@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.

Yes, but pretty much all universities are in the same position, measures such as redundancies are there to prevent the university goung bust. I've heard that even Cambridge, which is the richest university in the country, is having to take measures. Most will be having pay freezes and some even introducing short-time working.

I work at one which is being quite proactive and our measures were announced recently. Our VC is hopeful that these will remedy the deficit.

Caps have been in place for quite a while - HEFCE tells universities how many home students they can take. It's not new (but I get that it's been reintroduced).
HEFCE doesn't exist anymore and there hasn't been a cap on student numbers for years. This year there has been a cap re-introduced but it's a complex situation.

@SueEllenMishke It’s worse than that, there’s the assumption ex poly graduates NEVER get employment, except to stack shelves in supermarkets. At least I’m living proof that’s not true
I teach at an ex-poly and my course has 100% graduate level employment and has done for years.

There’s also the assumption the only way to get a job after graduation is via a graduate traineeship. That is just one way I keep telling the young people I know, many get graduate jobs through agencies, newspaper adverts (in my day Telegraph, Guardian) and specialist magazines.
My DH runs a university careers service - there are so many ways in which you can enter the graduate labour market.

You can look up the percentage of overseas students online, for example at Bristol is 11% but at Aberdeen it's 21%. Bristol will probably have more reserves to help them and they still have nearly 90% of the students from the UK but Aberdeen is going to have more from overseas studying on it's oil industry degrees which are 19k a year for overseas students. That's a lot of income which might be lost.

I wonder if any Scottish universities are on the list?

I used to be a finance officer at a high ranking University. It is really not fair to expect academics to be commercial managers as well, its a different skill set. Some can bridge both roles well but many don't and find it torture.

Hopefully Essex isn't on there. I know it's one of the middle lower tier, but I won't be able to finish my degree if it goes under.

Some of you seem to know a lot about this sort of thing. Do you think UAL is going to be ok?

You can draw some inferences from the source data:

"Large sector-level losses mask substantial differences between institutions. In general, institutions with a large share of international students and those with substantial pension obligations are most affected. These tend to be higher-ranking institutions as well as postgraduate and music & arts institutions. Some of the least selective universities, which rely largely on domestic fee income, will also be badly hit if higher-ranked universities admit more UK students to make up for the shortfall in their international enrolments. While recently introduced student number caps will constrain some of this behaviour, there are still likely to be falls in student numbers at the least selective institutions."

I mentioned this a few weeks ago on another here board for parents of students. One that is in trouble is SOAS - part of the University of London.

This comes from a University Counselors group after IB results came out

Heads up that Bristol uni will have clearing spaces for Vet Science this week (will go down to 30 points if 666) - apparently many unis looking to hugely undershoot on international numbers...

I do have skin in the game but there was a lot of criticism after the Guardian article implied SOAS was in imminent danger. It was apparently poorly researched and SOAS does have plans in place for their long term survival. It has not been good at turning its unique offering into more commercial activities, or at providing UK students with the environment they have come to expect from UK universities (the corporate look came as a surprise visiting other universities with my children after I had just finished there, I just assumed all universities had stayed rooted in the 70s ) but it is getting there. It is also held in international esteem and there has been and will be funding from elsewhere even if this government may not value what it uniquely offers or understand soft power. Obviously overseas funding often comes with strings that would damage its independence so let's hope this globally minded government work it out.

@SheikhaPinty

This thread is quite an eye opener. I’ve never even heard of ‘Mansfield university’, as for ‘Cambridge’, that can’t be The Cambridge uni, so is it Anglia Ruskin? *@thedancingbear*

There isn’t a Mansfield uni.

@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.

I think there’s redundancies everywhere. I work at a uni and maybe I’m naive but I don’t think it’s one of the 20. However there have been a laying off of temp staff, recruitment halted, ads were pulled, interviews cancelled, etc. The uni say it’s more of a safeguarding in uncertain times thing rather than shit we’re about to go under thing.

@Cheeseislife2020

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

They can lower their grade boundaries but if there’s a cap on numbers they won’t need to. Unless U.K. students in their droves decide not to go to uni in Sept which I’m not sure is happening.

If their numbers are capped at 100 for a specific course then they will still in most likelihood find 100 students with those grades. Maybe pick up a few with slightly lower grades. But if necessary the less prestige unis can also lower their grades. If it gets to a bums on seats scenario do the uni care if some students have DDC if they’re paying? Obviously that student May drop out early and affect attrition stats but if it’s one willl blame Covid for bad stats and prioritise income.

My mate has just accepted voluntary redundancy from the RG University he has worked at for over a decade and is currently a senior lecturer.

Aim for Russell Group Universities - they are the most likely to be stable.

There will be pay freezes, pay cuts, early retirement and redundancies across the whole sector.

Well, that's been interesting @petermaysawthefuture - I looked a bit further into the rankings and it seems that while the Guardian have Derby at 26, the three others say 71, 91 and 97 respectively, which though perhaps a little higher is much more what I expected to see: www.ukuni.net/uk-ranking/overall

I don't pretend to know how the Guardian reach their figures, so glanced through a few more and notice they're definitely the outlier, with rankings way out of line from those of the others for many of the institutions

As I say, interesting ...

there was a lot of criticism after the Guardian article implied SOAS was in imminent danger. It was apparently poorly researched

Looking at the broader rankings I just posted, I have to say that doesn't surprise me

As said I've no particular expertise in how the Guardian reach their figures, but when they're so often out of line with others you do have to wonder

Most universities are looking at making people redundant if they aren't already in a review period now (the one I work for is in mid-review of its professional services staff as we speak and there will be redundancies they've already said). I have a family member who works for the University of Cambridge and they have made redundancies too recently. The sector is so unstable I dont think anyone is immune to costcutting right now.

I work in HE and the sector has been hit very hard. As a PP poster said, this is a perfect storm which was already brewing before C19. Low birth rate, Brexit and now C19, leading to, amongst other things, a loss of foreign (mostly Chinese) students who have previously propped up our Universities finances. ALL universities are going to have to make huge savings, what this will look like will vary from institution to institution but I think we will quite feasibly see mass closures of less popular subject departments (again, this will vary depending on the institution), wide sale of assets, mass redundancies, move to shorter degrees and more online courses, halt on expansion etc etc. Sadly some, will go to the wall (and probably be absorbed into other institutions) I was surprised the figure quoted was as low as 13 to be honest. That said, most universities will survive in one form or the other.