Kent and Greenwich Universities to merge

[TizerorFizz]

It’s come to pass! Cutting costs by merging. Seemed an obvious solution to me. Others to follow?

This is what the Office for Students says. If does not explicitly say it will bail out universities and almost certainly could not afford to. Support does not equal the £ billions needed. However maybe others believe they do have the money, in that case, why is anyone remotely bothered about the future of HE?

Maybe ask the Scottish Gov why they lent Dundee millions.

A forced market exit is not in the Gov’s best interests at all, particularly in some parts of the UK - sudden mass unemployment in what was once a thriving town is never good economically.

Indeed @titchy. And support is not always about cash. It could be other mechanisms, such as guaranteeing restructuring loans. Having worked in this field, I know the backroom conversations and deals done that the public is rarely aware of.

@titchy Mergers are not a forced market exit. That’s the point. They might allow continuation but a slimmed down offering. I don’t see how this conversation has got round to closures and government bail outs. That’s not the proposals. When companies merge they don’t necessarily close all business premises. They might well rationalise what they do there. Eg if car production - make engines at one plant and assemble bodies at another. Have a technical university on one site and a business one on another looks possible for some mergers too. Being excellent at fewer things is often a good thing in business. The Poundland model is not a great one maybe?

Mergers are not a forced market exit. That’s the point. They might allow continuation but a slimmed down offering.

which is exactly why it may well have been supported with government funding.

Universities are also not just teaching institutions. I worked in a large university department, taking up two large buildings, where apart from a few postgrads we didn’t do any teaching at all. We were also self-funding.

@Wherehasthecatgone Evidence please. Through what financial route? It’s just a wild guess isn’t it. The obvious reason is a need to cut costs and Kent was in financial trouble.

My daughter is at Greenwich, she’s been told no impact on her course or campus and she’ll continue as she did last year. They already share a campus in Medway

I would hope current students would not see any impact but next year’s could be.

Clearly the merger is about costs but that doesn’t mean it has not been forced in return for government support. That doesn’t necessarily mean extra funds, it could be extension of current loans, or additional loans, or purchase of assets (including intellectual property).

My dd is at the Penryn Campus of the University of Exeter studying Environmental Science. It isn't offered at the main campus in Exeter. It is also more than two hours away from the main campus in an area of lower income. They share their campus with Falmouth University which is more arts focused. I think students in more deprived socio-economic areas do need universities that are closer. It's a mighty long way for us though!

@tadjennyp But that often consigns them to lower tariff courses and less work availability. Their world isn’t widened and grad jobs in Cornwall are not there. Just as in Lincolnshire. So what after graduation?

It’s ok for those who choose to be there but others might get forced to be there when they could aim higher. Often the Exeter Penryn tariffs are lower. Geography, for example, is offered at Exeter and Penryn, but lower entry tariff at Penryn. Why? It’s not just for Cornish students. Many outlying residents assume university means moving away. Try getting from Wadebridge to Falmouth every day - I don’t think Falmouth is only occupied by Cornish students. Many cannot get there! Or if they are resident at the uni, what savings?

The Falmouth set up wasn’t a merger either. It’s a second campus offering a different or varied menu. Durham has similar. Don’t see why Greenwich /Kent cannot do the same if finances permits. So why not have a law/business campus at one and a science campus at the other?

So you move away, as I did from Lincolnshire. The school I teach in is in a very deprived area of Cambs, and many of our students don't want to move too far away for uni. They mostly go within 90 minutes' drive, or stay at home and commute to save money. Loughborough is the current favourite. From my dcs' school in a not deprived area, they go to a much greater variety of universities at greater distance. I think if you insisted on getting rid of Lincoln and Falmouth, for example, you would be condemning a section of children to not going anywhere to study, due to lack of parental income. That wouldn't serve anybody's idea of social mobility. Geography at Exeter is AAA and at Penryn AAB, so not exactly letting just anybody in.

@tadjennyp Well Falmouth is already linked! Plus what proportion of local dc go there? How do they get there. Transport is woeful. I’d guess some parts of Lincolnshire ditto. The universities are not there for the students. They are really there for jobs. Lincolnshire has one of the lowest number of grad jobs so students don’t stay. Does anyone ever measure what difference degrees from these unis make to local dc if there aren’t grad jobs? I suspect not but maybe they mostly work for the unis?

Some us research I think demonstrated that Universities provide a focal point for skills. So they work by increasing the demand for skilled job rather than the supply. But to do so they need to be research based and/or linked with industry

The merger will bring a lot of natural reductions in staff costs because staff at Kent are local. Kent pivoted to a teaching focused institution in the last five years and so hemorrhaged any research staff who were able to leave. As a result the stalwarts who remain do so because they are settled in the area. They won't want to spend their lives on the motorway for hours to deliver lectures when departments merge.

@Breadpool They would not need to if they staffed centres of excellence and didn’t have the research intensive courses with not enough students signing up. It’s fairly clear they need a reset.

I don't know why I'm bothering but...

Regional universities deliver a myriad of benefits to their local geographies that goes beyond being places where local people study. Local/visible HEIs are a proven factor in increasing HE participation by children from lower socio-economic groups. Children from London might not choose to go to university in London, but the fact that the city is stuffed full of universities means that they have a much bigger opportunity to be exposed to them and to imagine themselves there. This is a proven factor in HE participation by the way, it's not my opinion.

Low/mid tariff does not mean low quality, it's a reflection of demand and supply as well as the academic requirements for the course.

Low/mid tariffs are not fixed. Universities have moved from mid to high over the last 20 years, and over the next 20 years there will be more movement. Saying X university is surplus to requirements because in 2025 it's low or mid tariff is ridiculous.

@AlphaApple well I'm glad you bothered, because I think it's important to put information like that out there, so thank you.

I do think the overall picture - economically, politically, academically - is much more complex than some people (including me, at times) perceive it to be. I wonder how many of the easy answers and statements - close courses, abolish whole institutions, bring back the polys, stop so many people going - are driven (at least in part) by a desire to return to a past that no longer exists, and by an urge to make sure that what was once a marker of privilege isn't diluted by letting too many of the 'wrong sort' of people in.

Like I say, I think I'm guilty of those things too sometimes. I find myself in the interesting situation of having had a top-tier university education myself, but having grown up in an area with only low-tier institutions and very little HE participation. I now have children who, for various reasons, are having to look at middle to low-tier institutions. And I've seen a range of outcomes from all types of institutions.

A level goal posts have moved! Of course tariffs change. It’s not unusual for countries to have specialist HE institutions of very high quality. They don’t have to be branded retro polytechnic. Unfortunately the HE sector won’t look at change and hectors people who are putting forward suggestions.

In all honesty some courses and universities are poor. We drive dc to go to them and don’t care much about outcomes and jobs. There’s no evidence that lower tier unis compete with the higher tier ones except in niche areas. IFS has looked at this. We would be better off making sure resources are targeted at excellence. Redundancies will continue but it’s in the hands of the universities and they need to wake up.

Polytechnics weren’t about tariffs!! They were different institutions with a different purpose. Universities were primarily research institutions that did teaching on the side. They did ‘pure’ research - the sort that forms the foundations of knowledge rather than applied. Polytechnics were about training in higher level technical skills and meeting the direct needs of local industries - hence often having a better immediate employment record than universities did.

@Wherehasthecatgone How old are you? Did you go to a poly? I did. They offered degrees with A levels required. Other courses as well but I’m not sure why you think they didn’t offer degrees and have undergrad students.

Our universities have taught undergrads for eons. Not sure when teaching undergrads was a side line. By 1952, we still only had 18 universities with 80,000 students in them. Looks like they taught students 75 years ago. The newer unis were built in the late 50s and many in the 60s with the polys. The polys offered more work related courses. That was a good thing and continues to be a good thing but we could consider universities having specialisms. Other countries are happy with this but we want broader offerings which is not entirely sensible if they don’t meet employer needs and students are voting with their feet.

TizerorFizz where in my post do you think I wrote that polys didn’t offer degrees?

Old university academics were first and foremost researchers - and mostly still are. Lecturing was never their principle activity.

@Wherehasthecatgone “Polytechnics weren’t about tariffs!!!”. I took that to mean A level grades. Admittedly they took 2 A levels back in the day but tariffs (grades) did matter. I’d didn’t find you walked onto a course. Universities teach. When far fewer were working in universities they researched and taught. Many MN posters have said who taught them. Courses became popular due to certain academics teaching. What’s the point of a university if undergrads aren’t taught by those who research as well. My DD1 did en academic subject and all lecturers researched and taught. What good is pure research to students? If no one learns from it, what’s the point ? (Except commercially).

You are still missing the point. Polytechnics weren’t about being lower tariffs. Their tariffs were set at a level to ensure ability and recruitment. It wasn’t about being easier than university to get into; they just occupied a different space. They taught different subjects and were more teaching focused.

Of course university researchers taught. But they were principally researchers. They were judged mostly on research output (and these days, research grants gained). Some were terrible teachers but got life tenure due to their research. The whole point of tenure was to give them the freedom to carry out research.

As for your idea that research is pointless…

@Wherehasthecatgone I’m really sorry but that isn’t true. The A levels required were lower. They just were and often 2 was sufficient. The polys were not the same as the new universities in the 60s. They just were not. They did employ people with a track record in work and made very good links with business but you could not compare them with the better universities.

I said what good is research if no one learns from it? Universities have been centres of learning for centuries. They are therefore places whose staff teach. The more research some can improve learning but not necessarily.