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?

The employers pay into the apprenticeship levy so do want young people. Many think grads don’t meet their needs

The apprenticeship levy money had only just started to be used up, because too many employers just used it as a tax write off. Many more used it to train existing, often older staff onto L7 courses, which is why the funding can no longer be used for L7. Over 60% of 18 year olds don't go to University. If they wanted to, they could choose some of those 18 year olds now and put them on Level 2 or 3 apprenticeships. Nothing is stopping them employing young people straight out of school and paying for them to go to night school. They are 'quality' 18 year olds, with good GCSE and A Level results, who cannot get apprenticeships or jobs. They don't want the hassle of employing an apprentice and having to give them a day off for training or spending time teaching them how to do the job. But that is why there aren't enough apprenticeships, placements or jobs for young people. Then those young people default to going to University even if they would rather not go, which creates the demand for University places.

I realised apprenticeships were a massive scam when I was offered a software engineering one at work, I had already been a software engineer for several years.

A friend wanted to do a data science one at work but was told it was only for people already working in data

Reading is a mid tier university. They are all grabbing students from anywhere they can get them from.

@RainbowBagels Yes. The levy was diverted to far too many L7 courses. This is stopping. Also it’s not fair to say employers don’t train dc but the system is so difficult now. They need employees. Very much so in hard to recruit areas. Years ago (boring!) I didn’t know anyone who failed to get trained by an employer or by going to night school. Day release if you were lucky! We just thought every career needed a degree when it didn’t. Some people needed degrees. I cannot see how the current situation can continue.

Wonkhe thinks Greenwich, ranked 77, is strong in law. Thats very low. Engineering strong at both - it’s not. We need a big dose of reality here.

It'll cost a fortune in admin and IT work to do the merger. Those staff will be getting very wary. Plus some of them will be expected to do all the merger work and then get made redundant. The work to do this will not be costed properly and it will be a nightmare.
These are my predictions and they will come true.

I’m also cautious about arguments that say “it worked in the 60s / 70s / 80s so it could work now”. The world is a vastly different place now - our economy is different, employers, jobs and skill requirements are different - and even if a return to polys was the solution it’s never, ever going to happen.

There are a number of thematic technical excellence centres proposed in the new industrial strategy that might fill a gap.

My guess is they employ a lot of ex IT students so their rankings go up on future employment 😉

@TizerorFizz all I know is that my friend compared her degree to a knock-off handbag from a market stall, where if she had gone to Kent they did work placement/experience and expected a higher level of application (whereas a lot of her cohort repeatedly failed topics and were allowed to stay and repeat as many times as they liked even when they often didn't attend lectures). This is what I mean about letting universities down - if you met someone saying they have a degree in something and they clearly have no clue what it was about, you're likely to surmise that subject is a load of codswallop. I suspect a lot of Brexit supporters who thought Uni was a "waste of time" met these types of graduates.

@AlphaApple So do you think social mobility is only available if you have a degree? I’m not sure I believe that. Plenty of builders snd trades people running their own businesses are middle class and they often hand over good businesses to dc. There’s a variety of ways dc have become middle class dorm the years.

Yes, I know things have changed but too many with degrees are not getting much of an earnings bonus. M
@FirstCuppa Kent would probably take just about anyone now! Work placements are not found by universities most of the time now either. There’s a few placements advertised and nowhere near enough to go round. University expansion has not helped placements either. Many are very opaque about this aspect of a course.

I think the students know what a course is about. The problem lies in employers not wanting or valuing the courses. This merger might focus minds on what courses do offer value for money for the university and the students.

All merging companies have to merge it and systems. They rationalise products and rebrand. They do it because the end result is better and fit for the future. Universities have to tackle this.

No, once merged they will be looking to cut costs and consolidating onto a single campus would be one way to do it, especially where buildings are generic rather than specialist.

@tizerorfizzplease don’t put words into my mouth. It’s something you do a lot to posters and it just shuts down useful discussion.

@AlphaAppleOk. If you say so.

My post wasn’t about social mobility.

They need experienced IT staff to do a merger of whatever system they decide on. Not sure what a bunch of recent graduates would do!

There would be no point in a merger if they were consolidating onto one campus

They're also not on campus now. They may consolidate courses and that may mean getting rid of one or 2 buildings in the future but they are at present jointly a large university. They couldn't house every course they do onto one campus.

They are merging to cut costs not to ensure a geographic spread.

yes but you can't cut building costs - students need lecture theatres, labs and classrooms. - costs are back office, staffing (maybe) and procurement. The merger probably allows better provision (e.g. choice of courses) with the same costs and hence more students wanting to study in either place

Not just back office will be cut though. There will be some consolidation of courses too and academic staff (possibly through natural decline). They won’t continue to run eg two law faculties. This may mean certain courses are only offered at one location in future. I don’t mean these changes will happen overnight but universities are constantly having to make changes to their estates and these are likely to lead to centralisation of provision over time.

My DS was born in 2008. He has always been part of a ' bulge year' that is now hitting university in 2026. After that the birthrate drops like a stone. There will have to be cuts to courses, especially if there are fewer international students. There just won't be the school leavers to sustain the volume. The primary schools closing now will be Universities closing in 10 years time. We can see it coming a mile off. Sensible institutions will plan ahead.

It'll be interesting to see what they end up doing with Law, and the others overlapping subjects. The morally correct thing would be to make sure that Canterbury has everything - otherwise you risk geographical subject ‘cold spots’ - already an issue elsewhere in the country (Classics no longer offered in NI for example, which most people won’t care about, but it means NI students have to travel to rUK - expensive - so perpetuates the elitism that surrounds the subject. Some areas won’t have any MFL provision soon - same problem.)

Would be easier if the other two Canterbury providers joined of course….

The CMA will want to ensure that student choice is maintained - so don't expect law to be only offered on one site. But specialist staff will probably end up teaching in both london and kent.

@drwitch Didn’t I read lots of Kent law staff have gone to Loughborough? Neither uni is great for law and we don’t need the 27,000 law students we have now but no one has told Loughborough!

I don’t see why we need full university provision in every area either. Try living in Bucks and commuting to a good university. (Oxford is the only decently ranked option but no transport from most places). We have one in the bottom 10% so it’s not used by our grammar school pupils very much. Why does Kent need special provision? Law is definitely better in London. The ranking of QMUL is top 10 for example and Greenwich could step up. Anyone wanting MFLs really should not be averse to leaving home for university. Just saying they should accept second or third rate because it’s local does students no favours whatsoever.

Does Exeter offer identical courses in Cornwall? What about Durham and their other campus? Surely there aren’t enough students to not rationalise courses?

I agree that the falling birth rate will focus minds in the next few years.

I wonder what inducements the merger attracted - grants or soft loans? It will come out in the wash eventually.

In the end the market will decide whether it's the right move - students will or won't choose to study there. All the puffery about this being an innovative new model for delivering HE won't matter. It will be 2-5 years before anyone can judge its success.

@AlphaApple From whom? Who has spare money for bribes? The government? Why would they bother and it’s hardly a priority.

According to reports others are looking at this so they aren’t being bribed. They are recognising what possible bankruptcy looks like, as Kent did. Others will need to do the same.

There you go again, putting words and meaning into my post that I did not write. It's totally normal for governments to intervene if an anchor organisation looks like it's about to fall over. It's in black and white on the Office for Students' website that they provide extra support for universities in "complex" financial situations.