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.

@wranglee See my previous comment.

Yes, I did see that thanks, and thanks boys for all your data over the years. Feels like Ox and Cam are the only safe bets for non-STEM.......If that suits you and IF you can get in.

Durham from the HESA data immediately available for previous academic years

21/22 65.6m deficit

20/21 12.7m surplus

19/20 75.9m surplus

18/19 71.1m deficit

17/18. 22.2m surplus

16/17 33.2m surplus

15/16. 5.2m surplus

Or, you could take the St Andrew’s approach of letting in well heeled American undergraduates. They speak English, they are well prepared, they don’t bring along families, they don’t overstay their visas, and they are useful life long contacts if you want economic opportunities. They are a route for a non-stem, more liberal arts type uni to survive.

I can understand Scottish students feeling miffed. They do pay £30,160/year though.

https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/a10274881/st-andrews-scotland/

https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/fees/world/

I am sure universities will be competing to have Prince George attend in a few years time for that reason.

I've lost the thread of my own thread, am on holiday with terrible wifi.

I'm not even going to engage with idiots who say we don't need social sciences or humanities.

Nor am I going to try to persuade the "just do this one simple thing to solve the conundrum of adequately funding HE." Really, if it was that simple don't you think us professionals would have thought of it by now?

Thanks for breaking into your holiday to speak common sense @GinForBreakfast

I had to stop reading this thread, as it was becoming a version of self-harm.

I'm currently using a day of a holiday to mark essays from students who cheated, or who couldn't be bothered to meet the deadlines - which can be automatically extended for 3 days, and with evidence for a further 2 weeks. But a few just cannot be bothered to do even that.

Have little sympathy for this.

The U.K. public want to make it as hard as possible for international students. Want to take their money but bar them as much as possible from any graduate opportunities.

International students keep U.K. universities propped up so I'm glad the U.K. public is finally getting what they asked for gradually with lots of inevitable uni coloured

Financial regulator being appointed to deal with unis going bust. The list of vulnerable ones is linked in article. Some surprises.

www.ft.com/content/8b1bdf4b-9c3c-4205-9a66-20e0ca8ae1ff

Do you have a share token? Or can you paste the article here?

@titchy

Bit of a non-story, relatively speaking. Nothing new

The universities regulator has announced a contract of up to £4mn for professional services companies to manage a potential wave of insolvencies, as the sector faces a looming funding crisis.

The Office for Students (OfS) announced the tender last week after education secretary Bridget Phillipson made it clear that the government will not bail out universities despite warnings from university leaders that several institutions are already on the brink of insolvency. The tender document, seen by the Financial Times, estimated the total contract value at £2mn to £4mn “based on ten audits in total over the four years”. This would be used to both restructure failing universities and manage “potential market exits”.

Consultants will be appointed by October to assess if universities “at material risk of market exit” can be rescued via a “transformation plan”. This would require them to open their books to forensic analysis and reveal details of their “decision making records, processes and historical performance”.

Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute think-tank, said drawing on outside advice was “probably necessary” even though it went against government plans to cut spending on consultants. “There are existential risks for some providers and the regulator needs to be all over them,” he added.

Already 67 higher education institutions are undertaking redundancy and restructuring programmes. (Article links to one you have already posted) This number is expected to rise as softening demand from international students and high debt servicing costs risks put the sector under even more pressure.

Phillipson has said the government will not step in to prevent insolvencies and refused to commit to raising tuition fees for domestic students, which have, in effect, been frozen for more than a decade, despite pressure from the sector lobby group Universities UK.

blah,blah, blah....The OfS said the aim of the contract was to seek “additional resource and expertise” to assist with financial monitoring, adding that financial sustainability of the sector continues to be a “high organisational priority”.

https://on.ft.com/4dbUzav

https://qmucu.org/qmul-transformation/uk-he-shrinking/

and when did the OfS become a UK wide regulator?

oh wait its hasn't; maybe news for the FT

tender https://www.delta-esourcing.com/delta/respondToList.html?accessCode=8F22W4EAR7

Thanks! Nothing new then - thought there might be a list of those on OfS's watchlist.

That UCU list isn’t up to date. Loughborough is doing voluntary exit/severance and offering cash for reducing our hours

As fewer dc have applied for University this year, it seems inevitable the sector will shrink. It’s like John Lewis trying to develop stores for housing when they aren’t making money as shops. Uni sites would solve housing shortages. Nice brown field sites!

Cutting down on some with mediocre research won’t hurt UK plc that much. Not all research is great or needed. The courses with too few students need to be amalgamated. I’m sure unis could work out a solution but they don’t actually want to.

Which ones do mediocre research?

@felissamy Look at the CUG Research quality table. Not that difficult to see who is at the bottom and who is not,

I've been told our department will likely over recruit this year to ensure we don't have a shortfall. But also been been told that it will place staff under huge pressure to deal with it. So job security but burnt out then.

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/How-should-undergraduate-degrees-be-funded-3.pdf

Many may well have already seen this given it was published by HEPI back in April. But for those who have not and fancy a bit of light bedtime reading it may be of interest.

One way to quickly save a lot of money would be to cut all welfare support for students. Let them cope with government/NHS support like everyone else does. Universities can stop paying for counsellors and mental health crisis support and note-takers and separate rooms for exams and all that and let students apply for the relevant government/NHS services instead. If they can’t take the same assessments as the other students at the same time (maybe with a bit of extra time - measures in hours not weeks) for those with disabilities or SEND or emergencies, then they would need to suspend their studies until they are well enough to continue them.

Universities would have to stop being checked up on for things like progression/completion rates and the law would have to make it very clear that we have no duty of care for our students because they are adults choosing to study with us and we’re businesses delivering a service. If they don’t like the service, or don’t comply with our T&Cs, they can find another service provider after giving appropriate notice.

Universities would save millions. What could possibly go wrong!

Legal bills defending disability discrimination cases.

Universities would also lose millions in lost tuition fees.

I don't disagree that fitness to study should be a more robust concept. Universities should not be dumping grounds for clearly unwell young people, no matter how middle class they are.

Where there have been tragedies the NHS MH services seem to have escaped criticism more than universities.