We have been talking about the financial viability of higher education providers for some time. In 2019, headlines declared that ‘Britain may soon have a bankrupt university’ and discussion raged as to whether the Government would allow a university to ‘go to the wall’. During the pandemic, the Institute for Fiscal Studies found there was ‘a very real prospect’ of what became the headline: ‘13 universities could go bust without bailout’.
These things did not come to pass. Overall, as the Office for Students reports, the sector has continued to weather both the volatility of the higher education landscape and the impact of COVID-19. In the main, universities have proved themselves to be agile and responsive, managing their cashflows carefully and accessing government Coronavirus support as required during the pandemic.
