University departments are on the edge of insolvency because of the funding crisis

The University of Hull – not a competition business: a staff member frustrated by the university’s decision to close its chemistry department

An anonymous staff member at Hull says that, as recently as last year, chemistry staff were told that the department was valued and the university did not intend to make anyone redundant. The person says that he feels sorry for the students. “They have their lives ahead of them and they’re in danger of not getting the product they signed up for, in the place that they chose.”

Many UK universities are in a financial crisis. Higher education is not treated as a public investment by the government, but rather as a private sector industry.

The United Kingdom has an important industry of higher education. Many universities, some dating back centuries, rank among the best in the world. Around 315,000 jobs can be found in the sector. It contributed over $300 billion to the country’s economy in the academic year, making up 8.6% of the GDP. Universities are among the largest employers. In fact, the University of Hull contributes more than 700 million pounds to the economy of one of the most deprived parts of the UK.

There is a lot of policies that have come to fruition, and the impact that they have on academic staff is something we have significant concerns about.

The government wouldn’t allow an institute to go under. “My view is whatever politicians might have said in the recent past, you can’t really let a large multi-faculty university just fold, because they’re too important to the local region,” he says.

Many feel that universities should not be run as competitive businesses at all. Wheeler says it comes down to the question, “What is a university?” Is a university good for making money or good for society as a whole, can we only give courses of study that benefit society in one way or the other?

The academics are more upset about how senior leadership has handled the economic situation. Brandon Wheeler has been unhappy with the management of the University of Kent for a long time.

Staff members at the UK university, founded in 1927 in what was then a thriving industrial city, were told about the planned closure of its chemistry department in June. With a dwindling number of undergraduate students, the institution said the annual charge of £9,250 (US$12,000) per student was too meagre to pay for the costs of running the section. The consultation is expected to end in the second week of October.

As student numbers dwindled, Thomas listed advantages. “The fact that it was so close knit meant that you did get the best out of your degree,” she says. I speak to people with more than 300 people in their degree. Attempting to get the lecturer to pay more attention just didn’t happen. With such a close-knit cohort you had that help right there.”

A University of Kent spokesperson says: “Like many in the sector, we face a number of financial challenges, including the fixed tuition fee, high inflation and changes in student behaviour. Our 2022–23 accounts reflected this, although we have put into action plans to address this and have improved our budget forecast for 2023–24 since initial cautious projections earlier in the year.” The university is already phasing out some courses on the basis of expected student demand, but will continue to offer a mix of subjects across science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines, the spokesperson adds.

Wheeler told me that for years Kent wavered between cutting the anthropology programme completely and letting it continue. “Confidence in university management is something that’s been completely lacking both from academic- and professional-services staff at Kent,” he adds.

When students brush their teeth, pack their bags and walk to the chemistry building of the University of Hull, it will be with more fear than usual.

A second-year PhD student at the department, Longbottom was excited about her project and planning to do it. “Now it’s all uncertain.”

70 of the 295 higher education providers in the UK have announced plans to restructure or downsize in recent months according to the data collected by the University and College Union.

A person once said that the way to make a great city was to build a university and wait 200 years. “Hull is a much better place because it’s got a university than it would be if it hadn’t. It is possible to bring income to the town in terms of getting workers to work for local businesses.

Many warn that a larger crisis could occur if one or two universities go under, as 40% of them are expected to lose money this year. “I’m worried about a domino effect,” Hillman says. Once one university falls over, some lenders are going to start looking at their books and pull the plug on their loans.

Higher-education funding crisis deepens: UK universities on the brink as university departments close to the financial crisis (with an appendix by Yukawa and Shreya Morita)

They took a heavy toll from inflationary pressures. After years of plenty, we saw gradual years of drift. When inflation hit 10% in July 2022 it was a significant cut, and more than a drift.

The student numbers cap was removed in the year 2014; it made some universities unbearable. Now, institutions can accept as many undergraduates as they like.

Larger universities in major cities have attracted more undergraduates, leaving smaller institutions to compete for a shrinking pool of students (see ‘Undergrad movements’). But some have bucked the trend.

Some UK universities planned to address a fall in European students after Brexit by attracting researchers from low- and middle-income countries, such as India and Nigeria. The number of Indian students increased fivefold between 2017 and 2021, and that of Nigerian students tripled.

In January, a law change stopped students from bringing dependants with them due to the rapid rise in immigration figures. The number of visas given to Nigerian students fell by almost half when compared to the year before, as the number of visas granted to Indians fell by 23%.

Source: UK university departments on the brink as higher-education funding crisis deepens

The University of Essex has shut down, and it is the right time to reshunn the university: What do we need to do about it?

The University of Essex in Colchester warned its staff in March about the risk of a £14 million shortfall in income. Tom Cameron, a professor of applied ecology there, lists the protective measures the institution has brought in. “We put a halt to promotions, we put a halt to bonus payments. We stopped external recruitment for certain positions. All of these things may be frustrating, but, collectively, it means that you and your colleagues have jobs. He says that he views that very positively.

In March, Kent announced an expected operating-budget shortfall of £31 million, following a £12 million loss in 2023, and said it had rescheduled its debt repayments, with the next repayment arranged for March 2026.

Other countries show that it is possible to be this way. Many European governments pump billions into higher-education funding as well as research. Students pay a small charge, or a heavily subsidized tuition fee, to cover the costs of a degree. Government scholarships are also available in many countries. China, which has the world’s largest higher-education sector, with more than half of its secondary-school graduates enrolling in tertiary education, operates on a similar model. Even in the United States, public universities receive some direct funding from their state governments as well as charging tuition fees.