70% of inoverisities facing large deficits -it's the newer universities that are going to suffer

[mids2019]

So I was listening to a radio 4 piece about the parlour state of university finances and I was struck that no mention was made that it wasn't the Oxford and Cambridges of this country that faced the realistic prospect of mass redundancies and department closures but the newer universities.

Mention was made of course duplication in subjects such as English and the need to rationalise but these closures would be occuring let's face it in non RG universities in all lijelihood.

When debating university prospects shouldn't we be open that it is is not a full sector problem but a problem that predominantly hits the newer universities which have perhaps overwxpanded?

Something not mentioned on this thread ate the costs of research for research intensive universities.

Most research costs the university money, as in the direct costs let alone overheads.

There is much prestige and kudos on high levels of research outputs but if a university is reliant on international student income to "plug the gap" of funding it.

I agree research costs and some unis with money do less of it. Some a glorified schools. Thats why lots should not be unis. Surrey, Reading and Hull have a deficit. Many sets unis do. These definitely need to merge. Certainly a few ex polys have deficits too. I do agree with @mids2019 that certain courses need to go.

I also want a well educated workforce but we always cite stem when we talk about this. Stem to solve world problems. I rather think we don’t believe Englidh, Politics, or philosophy will. We don't, of course, have enough good stem students to round - hence CCD offers. However we cannot make English students good at stem! So we might want more education but it has to be useful and directed. Not quite so much personal choice and much closer allied to need.

We used to be the 5th richest country. We owe trillions of £. We aren’t that rich. Our DC will be working and paying even more tax. If we want more money in HE, make it worthwhile. There’s lots of people paying tax to fund student loans who never got near a uni.