Some universities will go bust thread 2

[GinForBreakfast]

Continuing as thread 1 has filled up.

though pretty much nothing on that slide is not already in the public arena. Which bit do you think is confidential?

The cuts are by no means guaranteed to avert future disaster. There are universities such as Kent and UEA which are already on their second or third rounds of redundancies and programme cuts in as many years. Its not hard to envisage near-continual cuts and closures in individual universities until the inevitable happens.

I agree @GCAcademic, but I assume there will be some other, significant changes in the sector as a whole that will change the model and save UK HE. It is absolutely world class, let's not forget.

There won't be. Jacqui Smith has said as much.

Brigit Phillipson promised "wide scale reform" by the summer. There could be some radical proposals on their way.

But no more money.

@GinForBreakfast Some of it is world class. Some of it run of the mill that HE colleges did perfectly well in the past with employers on board. Ditto the polys. It’s clearly a bloated sector that reacts too slowly to changes that affect the business model. All those clever people too…….

excellent links (olus the extra inks within the WonkHE article are next level)

If peole have not clicked on the 2nd one c&p of the "most recent" announcements

• Cardiff announced they are seeking to lose 400 colleagues.
• The University of Dundee will no longer issue contracts to post-graduate students for teaching in 2025.
• Durham is planning to lose 200 (!!!) non-academic colleagues and opened a voluntary severance scheme.
• Kent opened another voluntary severance scheme, but is looking to cut £20million within three weeks…
• Lancaster is cutting 400 posts over the next two years
• Newcastle announced they’re making 300 FTE redundancies
• University of West England: Bristol Old Vic will no longer be accepting enrolments from September 2025.

Current redundancy & REstructure programmes, which can be seen in detail in the link posted by titchy, now runs to 87 institutions

though @titchy what's this Russell group split in the WonkHE categorisation. Russell Group 7 and then separately rest of Russell Group. For some quite inappropriate reason it made me think of Life of Brian. Splitters! I'm sure there is a much more mundane explanation.

Thought you'd appreciate them boys3!

RG v RG7 - WonkHE puts providers into groups of similar (size, tariff, subject range, research strength etc) to enable better comparisons. LSE is RG - but tiny compared to Imperial, so what value is there in comparing those two. Is Oxford comparable to Liverpool etc.

More here: https://wonkhe.com/blogs/making-sense-of-a-diverse-sector/

It's been widely debated amongst us nerds! People's Front of Judea

And of course people constantly complain about train drivers being paid too much.

I don't even get this argument that people would be happier being bricklayers than going off to do a degree. What's stopping someone being a bricklayer now if thats what they want to do?

I don't think many students still believe that they're going to earn a shedload of money because they have a degree. I think most of them go because they want the experience of three years where they can learn and grow and develop.

And if we in our society are going to limit that experience to a select few we deem worthy of it at least lets be honest and tell our young people that we're just too cheap to offer the experience to more than a select few. Don't tell them it's for your own good that you go off to be a bricklayer.

beyond disappointingly mundane as reasons go.

I don’t think it matters which universities contract or merge, but some need to get on with it. Students are put in a difficult position without clarity.

The message from our VC is that universities are unlikely to merge. We had our 'state of the nation' update recently and he was asked directly if this was an option for us or other nearby universities.

Merging two failing institutions isn't going to suddenly create a successful one and successful universities are not going to want to spend time and effort absorbing a less successful one at the detriment of meeting their own KPIs.

This.

Successive governments’ carelessness and pandering to UK xenophobia is ruining one of our best exports. UK HE consistently punches above its weight and offers excellence. But clearly the British public don’t care.

Can't say I'm convinced about a major change to the funding model tbh. There'll be a bit of tinkering round the edges (no VAT on shared services would be useful!) but nothing that's going be change the sector fundamentally which is what we need now.

I think more mergers are on the cards! At least more examples of one local uni taking the students of another and calling it a merger...

The tuition fee system either needs to cover the actual cost of teaching undergraduates or we go back to substantial State funding and shrink the system.

We could go back to the situation before fees: 15% of the population having the opportunity to study for a degree. And most of those 15% being middle class white men ….

Is that what UK parents want?

@ElaineMBenes It’s absolutely possible to reduce costs by merging. That’s why many businesses do it. It’s best done with companies with a similar ethos but of course change can be made. There would need to be acceptance as to why the universities are failing but, if it’s overspending due to lack of income (too few students), then merging into one stronger, leaner, university would help. It would give a strong vision and clear market position. However it’s a huge amount of work and VCs have absolutely no experience of doing it.

This is why universities are not businesses. Just look at all the car manufacturers we had in the Midlands 75 years ago. They all had to merge in the end and even works sold off, eg Mini at Oxford. How a business operates must reflect the market in which it operates. Over expansion needs a correction. So many businesses do this in innovative ways. Pretending certain actions are off limits is the sign of poor leadership with no experience in a contracting market.

The state already funds the loans. £250 billion outstanding. I doubt more funding is possible. Neither should it be.

Also with 37% going to university and huge expansion post 2013, it could go back to 2010 levels. No one thinks the 2% of 1950 is where we go or even 10% in 1970 but we need a much stronger HE sector below degree level. Thats not bricklaying. I guess art and acting students won’t want this career so getting dc into the best career for them still matters. The reason dc aren’t keen on trades is that it’s cold and hard work. Of course university is more appealing. There are other jobs that can be accessed with HE below degree level though and this route needs expansion to around 5% to get us to 33% going to university but others getting high quality HE.

@TizerorFizz
I didn't say anything about reducing costs. Of course a merger would reduce costs ...... but at what cost?

Why would a successful university merge with a less successful institution if that would impact their KPIs and metrics? Which wound then have a detrimental impact on reputation, recruitment and income generation?

Universities will take on students from failing institutions and departments but large scale mergers are unlikely and can't be forced upon the sector.

There needs to be full scale reform of higher education as the current model
Isn't working. But that seems unlikely to be imminent.

If we're comparing to the commercial world, they merge (or takeover) because there are elements of that "failing" business which are not failing, there are other elements that could be turned around when blended with the buyer's offering or expertise, there are administrative and other elements that could gain savings from synergies, and, yes, there are elements that would be mothballed. Mergers could be better for everyone that straight-up closures.

Can I just point out that my grant income does not increase year on year with inflation or other costs? I have staff on 5 year grants, where the awarding body has given us 1.7% YoY for inflation. Which is tricky if the University awards pay rises of 2.3%+

I'm not surprised at all by the cuts - it's the bust after the boom in HE over the past couple of decades. It's a shame that it's probably screwed up the previously really good model of polys/HND style system.

If we're comparing to the commercial world, they merge (or takeover) because there are elements of that "failing" business which are not failing, there are other elements that could be turned around when blended with the buyer's offering or expertise, there are administrative and other elements that could gain savings from synergies, and, yes, there are elements that would be mothballed. Mergers could be better for everyone that straight-up closures.

I think it is very difficult to compare the commercial world the the HE world though. Our metrics and measures of success are complicated and largely dictated to us so we have little control over these. Yet they are used as a stick to beat us with.

Add in the fact that we have absolutely no control over how much we can charge for our main product then you have a recipe for disaster!

When considering a merger universities will be considering the impact it would have on metrics such as NSS, Graduate Outcomes, TEF etc as well as income. It's tricky!
Plus mergers are very rarely 'mergers' they're takeovers.

When considering a merger universities will be considering the impact it would have on metrics such as NSS, Graduate Outcomes, TEF etc as well as income.

This is where there needs to be a more radical rethink. These measures/metrics etc. are there to improve the quality and health of the sector. If they are actively hampering changes that would improve it then we need to pause them.

E.g. if entry tariffs weren't used as a quality measure in league tables, there would be fewer barriers to merging a "high tariff" with a "low tariff" university. Bearing in mind that tariffs are only partly driven by the actual quality of the student experience / education.

This is where there needs to be a more radical rethink. These measures/metrics etc. are there to improve the quality and health of the sector. If they are actively hampering changes that would improve it then we need to pause them.
E.g. if entry tariffs weren't used as a quality measure in league tables, there would be fewer barriers to merging a "high tariff" with a "low tariff" university. Bearing in mind that tariffs are only partly driven by the actual quality of the student experience / education.

I completely agree. So many of these metrics are flawed .
Graduate Outcomes is a prime example. The response rate is often too low for universities to take anything meaningful from the data (and responses and recording of them is often subjective) yet universities spend huge amounts of money and resources on specifically improving this metric. Money that could be used on differently to support student employability.