Some universities will go bust

[GinForBreakfast]

Reported in the Times today. It must be so worrying for students joining or returning in September/October.

My question is around the regulator, who knows where the issues are. What should they be telling students and when? It seems cruel, especially to young people, to withhold information. It has financial implications as well - people moving, paying deposits etc.

It's a very difficult situation. I understand your point about warning the students (I have an 18yo DS due to start uni this autumn), but the problem is that it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy - if the regulator published the name of a university that was in financial trouble, the students would turn down their offers or transfer to other universities and then the university in question would collapse (whereas it might otherwise have made a financial recovery).

Yet another thing the Tories did not tackle in a timely way. It can't have helped that for years and years they have been implying that having overseas students at UK universities was a problem because some of them might overstay and work illegally, and some may bring families with them. In the distant past it was a huge plus for the UK HE sector to be the country of choice for students from most Commonwealth countries and some other countries too. The students who came here had a good experience and retained ties with the UK for the rest of their lives, during which many rose to prominent positions in their home countries. How on earth have we descended to the Little Englander position we're in now where overseas students are made to feel unwelcome and consequently go to the US, Canada or Australia instead?

(I'm aware that separately there is a problem that some courses are dominated by overseas students whose English is barely adequate, or totally inadequate - but I still think we should be encouraging top notch overseas students to come here.)

It’s a worry, I agree.

We really need to investigate the state of third-level education and decide sensibly if the last 30 years’ massive expansion in degree provision can be maintained.

But change would need to be sufficiently gradual to allow existing cohorts of students and applicants to make different plans.

but I still think we should be encouraging top notch overseas students to come here
Agreed but a lot aren't "top notch", they are cash-cows that the sector has become too reliant upon.

I know someone who works for OFS. As @AppleCream says, OFS cannot and should not publish the names of the universities who are on rocky ground as that would be a death-sentence. The universities in question know that they are in trouble, but it doesn't help them recover if that becomes public.

It doesn't help at all that OFS has been led by a Tory crony, when it's supposed to be a politically neutral appointment, who has prevented OFS offials from publishing, or has forced them to tone down the wording of, anything that could be seen as criticism of Tory policies that have led to this shambles.

Yes, the "self-fulfilling prophesy" argument is strong. But the regulator has a duty to those students - it's called the Office for Students after all.

There could be legal implications for universities and the regulator if it's demonstrated that they didn't take this into account - not just through HE regulation but also CMA legislation.

I fail to see how a political appointment has led to financial crises at universities

(I very much doubt that this government’s appointments will be politically neutral: they certainly weren’t under Blair and Brown.)

WonkHE is good, as always. wonkhe.com/blogs/the-government-must-mitigate-the-risks-of-a-university-going-under/

Yes they will. Yet another major problem caused by the previous government’s dogmatic obsession with getting immigration numbers down. Ill thought through, dog whistle politics. Idiots.

Sorry I thought that was implied.

The political bias in OFS leadership didn't cause this. But it has prevented the growing crisis from being talked about and tackled because they weren't allowed to talk much about the consequences of flawed Tory policy (eg making the UK a hostile environment for overseas students when these students are vital for universities to balance the books)

It is extremely concerning, one of my DC will be applying this winter and even without the possibility of a complete failure the cuts that many have been making are a real worry.

Am I missing something? The university’s have already been identified, if you look at the article.

It’s not just some universities, it is most. I would be very surprised if the sector as we know it exists in 10 years time, hence the push for degree apprenticeships and modular learning that you can dip in and out of throughout your life time - while working and contributing through taxes 😡. The government is pushing skills rather than academic education (skills that employers want but apparently not enough to fund training 🫤 rather than a decent education). The idea of education as a common good has gone forever.

Tuition fees haven’t gone up in years but costs have (and if tuition fees went up, kids would stop opting to go because students are currently broke as fuck and not seeing the returns on their degrees that graduates did in the past - no one is getting in 30 odd grand of debt to be stuck at minimum wage for the rest of their lives). The foreign student bubble is bursting.

We are heading into a world where only the richest will be able to study academically post 16-18, have the chance to study what interests them or what they are talented at, rather than what makes money for the government. It’s back to the Victorian era.

Normally they have a duty to ensure the current students will finish at the very least their year, if not their course.
Otherwise, universities will contact other Unis so they can take their students on. It might well be on the ither side of the country though.

I also suspect this will impact some courses and not others.
It will also impact all the teachers, who will struggle to find another job in the U.K. esp if many of them close all in one go.

fwiw one of the reasons why universities struggle us because if the huge drop in international students, who were funding British students.
Thats linked to immigration policies. That could be reviewed if the government wanted to.

This is not news, and names of certain vulnerable institutions have been banded about in the past. You can probably guess that they are the ones that struggle to fill places especially with lucrative overseas students, nor do they have significant research income which subsidises lecturers salaries and nor do they have significant industry collaborations (some of the post 1992 institutions have been particularly successful with this as an income stream).

They are pushing to be allowed to reduce their pension contributions to the less generous USS rather than TPS

I live in a city with a failing university. The implications of it/when it goes bust are huge for the local economy. The uni employs 5000 people or thereabouts and has approx 20000 students who all come and spend money in the local area, rent houses, and work in our shops and cafes.

There needs to be a serious plan for these type of areas. Whether that's bailout or relocating civil service or incentivising large companies to take over such sites.

It's far bigger than the two years of students who might need to transfer.

@Thatsnotmynose which is also what makes me think they can’t afford to have so many Unis failing like this all at the same time.
One uni, affecting one town will be hard already. But several? They’ll have to do something.

This all started with the view that 50% of people must go to university. T Levels, techincal skills were forgotton. Because 50% of people werent right academically for uni the uni's dumbed down the grades required and offered Foundation Courses etc so that they got the students through the door.

It didnt matter that they never had any chance of paying their fees back. Then they got greedy and wanted international students for the extra fees. Those students brought families over.

Now we are in a shit storm of some universtities potentially going bust who probably never should have been unversities in the first place.

Lets make a technical qualification as good if not better than a second rate degree which isnt going to help anyone. I dont want to bail out these places. Lets look at other options.

What should they be telling students and when? It seems cruel, especially to young people, to withhold information. It has financial implications as well - people moving, paying deposits etc.

There will either be bail outs (for major universities) or mergers of universities in proximity (mostly post-92s) - eg you could merge Liverpool Hope & Liverpool John Moores. But young people will find other institutions, and they have their whole lives ahead.

The real loss and cruelty to the UK - for the next 50 years or so - and our wealth and ability to compete in international knowledge economy - will be HUGE and devastating losses of jobs for skilled & devoted academics who have devoted the equivalent time of training to be a medical consultant to their careers.

If the worst happens, these losses will be irrecoverable and the UK's world-leading education system will be in a terminal decline. We had a thoughtless & careless Tory government who let this happen. Let's hope the new government comes to their sense about supporting this really important industry.

I think it is interesting that The Times has decided to raise this as an issue now, when it has been known about for years.

Perhaps all that's actually happening is that students who were using their university course as a way to illegally migrate here and bring their families, are choosing not to do so? You think this is actually a bad thing?

Its not actually the distant past, it was a huge plus last year.
The history of changes to student visas is really interesting. 2020 rules were relaxed so that more students could work and could bring dependents, resulting in a significant increase in the number of overseas students on taught graduate courses. In January 2024 those rule changes were reversed by the same government, which is already having a dramatic effect.

https://monitor.icef.com/2024/05/uk-home-office-data-finds-a-significant-drop-in-student-visa-applications-for-first-quarter-of-2024/

Unfortunately the money to do something was spent by Liz Truss on enriching her gambling mates from Tufton Street.

A big part of the problem is student fees have been frozen for the last 6 years while costs have continued to increase considerably, especially energy costs. From what I've read students would be paying around £14,000 a year if fees had increased with inflation. As three quarters of students are from the UK that's where the big issue lies IMO as that is a huge loss.

Numbers of UK and International students have decreased in the last couple of years after peaking around 2021/2022 but International student numbers had rocketed before that point so i'm not sure that can be the main issue. It seems that it's mainly post grad numbers that have decreased, understandably as they're the ones most likely to be older and have a family they want to bring. I don't think the impact will be anything like as large on undergrad numbers.

I think it will be a case of cutting less popular courses, merging universities that aren't doing so well and universities stopping expanding and expanding on the assumption that student numbers are going to constantly increase.

Also the demographics of the school population.

The big bulge years are still working their way through secondary, but this will be over by about 26/27/28 (there’s a BBC article on this). This bulge will hold things together, probably for about 3 years. So this years freshers may well be OK, but they might be the last intake who are

So my question would be “what contingency plans will be put in place for students affected?”