Across the sector, there is deepening concern about the finances of universities.
Industrial action over pay and workloads has shifted from an occasional “act of god” to a permanent fixture; restructures and rounds of redundancies resulting in reduced programme portfolios are announced almost every week; and concern is growing over the pace and rate of international recruitment as a way to plug the growing gap between income and costs.
On the front page of the Guardian a couple of weeks ago, vice chancellors warned that the current funding model for UK higher education is “broken”, prompting the Department for Education in England to point out that universities are independent from government:
This means that universities decide their business models and oversee issues such as admissions, staff recruitment and pay.
