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.

🤦‍♀️

I worked in a very profitable university department without a single undergraduate student (and all the postgrad ones were paid). How do you think that works if by your reconning we had no customers?

Ah so a private investor would only be interested in overseas students perhaps?

Yes, see below - but its obvious to anyone. It gets tedious when people ask for evidence when it's so clear to see in the round.

People need to become much more self resilient and stop expecting everyone top be there to pick up all aspects of their life. Supporting people continuously is not helpful, people need to help themselves.

www.tribalgroup.com/blog/10-years-of-wellbeing-data-reveals-the-extent-of-the-mental-health-crisis-in-uk-higher-education

But you don't seem to care about value for money or giving choice to students about which experience to take? So, yes you should if it gives good results (it does) and is much cheaper.
Sorry but you have no idea what subject I teach or what it takes to get good results.
Teaching my subject to large groups is not going to get good results. Sometimes cheaper isn't better.

As for not giving students choice, you're wrong (again). I was the first person in my university to develop a fully distanced learning programme and the first in my subject area in the world. We're the only university in the world that offers my subject online, in person, full time, part time and soon as an apprenticeship.
I know what it takes to run a successful course that gets good results (100% graduate employability) and I'm constantly looking at ways to innovate and improve student experience, success and generate income.

You claim to be an expert in business transformation but you're clueless about education. Your one size fits all approach isn't going to work in a sector where every single university is different.

It's exactly the number of students paying fees. Sounds like 35,000. Do some people pay without being a student?

Jesus. And this person thinks they can fix the higher education sector 🤦🏼‍♀️

This is very concerning if 45% of tuition fees are paying for wellbeing within the university. There's something terribly wrong somewhere.

Where it the data relating to 25 years ago?

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06152/SN06152.pdf

just a thought @Satsuma89 but interspersing some actual facts into your posts could be a consideration. 🤔

Albeit incremental improvement rather anything truly transformational. Baby steps first.

It's worth thinking about what private education and training costs for most adults once out in the workplace. I have friends that work in training and development. The going rate for them is £1500 for an online training workshop lasting an hour. Barely any interaction, no coursework marking or setting linked to that. They just turn up, talk on zoom and log off.

Suddenly 9k per year on interactive sessions, career support, bespoke research led content etc. And all the things people on here have mentioned, seems very cheap!

And now in Scotland:

Scottish universities must merge to survive, experts say.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/scottish-universities-must-merge-to-survive-experts-say-dzkshdmwtt_

Suddenly 9k per year on interactive sessions, career support, bespoke research led content etc. And all the things people on here have mentioned, seems very cheap

It is very cheap if you break it down into cost per individual session.

As part of my revenue raising work for the university I sometimes put on a days training for qualified professionals. The way I run it is that an organisation will pay for the whole day and they can send up to 12 of their employees on the day. I charge 12k for the day. So yes 1k per person per day I guess.

Plus some of this support continues after graduation. My university offers careers advice for life.

@Satsuma89

People need to become much more self resilient and stop expecting everyone top be there to pick up all aspects of their life. Supporting people continuously is not helpful, people need to help themselves.

I think this more than anything reinforces that you don't understand what's happening in universities.
Universities are under huge pressure to provide pastoral care and are vilified in the press (and on here) when a student takes their own life.
Today's students are fragile - whatever the reasons, you can't pretend that it's not happening or really believe that just leaving them to cope on their own will have a positive effect.

Money is spent on wellbeing because it's necessary. Parents are very invested in where their offspring go to university these days and pastoral support is one of the first things they want to know about.

Now if there's a way to reduce or abolish fees so that students and parents are no longer consumers - well that might change the current dynamic. But not at the cost of mental health because that's not going to fly.

I'm imagining these utilitarian institutions where knowledge is delivered in en masse in unheated lecture theatres, students have no support or feeling of ownership, work isn't marked or examined to cut costs and degrees are not actually awarded because all of that administration (and it is a lot) is too expensive. There are no libraries so

Sorry!
...only books and documents available for free on the internet are to be consulted. So learning becomes more limited and less meaningful without quality resources, students have to study at home because there are no libraries to sit in. No societies or clubs, because that costs money, no subsidised meals for same reason, students are scared to come on to campus anyway because there are no more security guards and petty crime is increasing, lights are switched off at 5pm...

Doesn't sound very appealing!!

Ok I'm exaggerating 🤣 but university life (for students) is and needs to be much more than the consumption of knowledge.

DS went back into halls the second year because of the COVID lockdowns he'd already been sent home for the first one.

He and girlfriend asked for a room each in the same flat. Seven rooms altogether . The other five rooms were a revolving door of overseas students who would arrive find their feet, others of their home country and move out. It was the same in the whole building 180 flats.

I can imagine with further lockdowns that pastoral care would have been overloaded with students.

It's very lonely when you don't have flatmates to gel with. Maybe universities have just got too big

I'm an engineering graduate. Some elements of the course could be taught in large lecture theatres with 80 plus people. Other areas, especially lab work could only be taught in groups of up to a dozen people, you needed to be up close to lab equipment to observe in detail what was unfolding before you (soil filtration tests, shear box testing, material compression testing, wind loading, fluid dynamic experiments etc). You needed the lecturer or lab assistant to walk through in live time what was happening and why. There was zero chance of being able to fully grasp the experiments from row Z in a lecture theatre or via a camera.

Just a reminder that Scottish Universities get just £1820 pa from Scottish students…

Reading that article, it mentions University of Highland and Islands. I think UHI is illustrative of the problem. It is much more like a selection of further education colleges and offers courses from centres across the region and online (often from the centres too as internet speeds/access can be very poor). The courses are largely below degree, with many being the sort FE colleges offer including entry level qualifications below GCSE level. It doesn’t make sense for it to be a university. There is nothing wrong with it being a college of FE and one that perhaps supports degrees accredited by other universities. It is pure politics for it to be a University.

The capping of Scottish student numbers at Scottish universities due to the limited funding for them means more and more Scottish students are studying elsewhere. It can be grating for Scottish students to see clearing places at their preferred university only open to English students, perhaps with lower grade equivalents. There is not an option to pay fees to take up those places.

Yes, see below - but it's obvious to anyone. It gets tedious when people ask for evidence when it's so clear to see in the round

Oh god satsuma please tell me you don't work at Tribal?

To be clear that £1820 is paid by the Scottish Government. And has been frozen in cash terms since 2009-10.

the IFS published a report on some of the funding challenges for Scottish Universities not that long ago - December 2023

one of the striking observations was that direct public funding for Scottish students was 19% lower in real terms than in 2013-14. And around 21% lower than the resources available for an English university teaching an English domiciled undergrad in 2023-24.

in contrast in Scotland spending on school pupils was some 20% higher in real terms than per pupil spending in 2013-14. Also £1300 more than per-pupil spending in England.

the funding structure as your subsequent post alludes to means Scottish universities have a financial incentive to expand provision, but not for Scottish students.

the system of living cost support for Scottish students has also become substantially less generous over time.

Sorry, I realised I wasn’t clear. Yes funding comes from the Scottish Government but at a rate of only £1820 per Scottish student.

The grant to the HE and FE sector in Scotland was also cut by £100million this year.

Could someone explain why Durham is in this list? Appreciate just about everyone has a problem, but they do stand out as being different to the other institutions. Was it an odd year? Understand about not seeing one set of figures in isolation. Their accommodation charges are very high as it stands, not sure we could manage a massive increase. I assume that they feel they can charge what they like as their clientele is more affluent than the average.
Really depressed at the mess we have made of HE.

@Wranglee as we both highlight this is just a single year. However in that one year

Durham’s overall income is unspectacular, particularly research grants and income, and in terms of costs, £60m on depreciation and amortisation stands out, 12.3% of total - sector typically around 6.5% in that year.

Exeter has a slightly higher D&A figure than Durham at £84m (13.9%) but its income is around £150m higher. Fee income £50m higher, Research Grants double that of Durham. Exeter of course has a larger student body, though a slightly smaller % of international students.