Today on Arguably, Glen O’Hara, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Oxford Brookes University, returns to write on solutions to the universities crisis – a story that has been remarkably undercovered by the media.
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George Eaton, Editor-in-Chief, Arguably
Britain’s universities are in distress and their painful decline is only getting worse. Several nearly ran out of funding last year and almost half are running a budget deficit. Tens of thousands of jobs have gone, most recently at institutions as different and as far apart as Dundee, Exeter and Hertfordshire. More are on the line. Indeed, the way the system is set up, this debacle can only get worse – until all the gains we have made since the 1990s in widening participation, urban renewal, cultural capital and spin-off growth are imperilled.
Caught in such a maddening bind, it’s tempting to conclude that the situation is beyond repair. But no government can afford to take such a view. Nor are ministers helpless. Given the mix of harm that Whitehall and Westminster have already inflicted, and the lazy neglect that’s caused even more damage, a little diligence and effort should at least make some difference. So what can be done?
First, the problems. The most obvious one is money. Real-terms funding per student has fallen by 35% since 2015-16 as fee levels have stagnated and taxpayer funding has been almost entirely withdrawn (the situation is even worse in fee-free Scotland). If you lose a third of funding, and then squeeze the international numbers that came to make up the difference, you must lose a third or more of quality. Sometimes, policy is simple. But the rot goes far deeper.
