Ex-ministers warn UK universities will go bust without higher fees or funding | Higher education
https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/may/19/ex-ministers-warn-uk-universities-will-go-bust-without-higher-fees-or-funding
Posted by OldGuto
16 Comments
Perhaps it’s a good excuse to restructure parts of the university sector? We have some universities in this country that are neither good at research nor good at teaching.
Maybe even go back to something similar the pre-92 system? Universities for the top talent and research, polytechnics for more vocational courses and then higher education/specialist colleges (e.g. colleges of music and drama).
Honestly? Good. Get rid of these shit-tier ‘mess-about’ unis that have been swimming at the rock bottom of the tables since they were founded, and send their funding to the unis that actually do proper research and produce high quality graduates.
Ex minister who probably benefitted from no tuition fees , no student debt and a boys network legup wants to burden next generation further.
Or maybe we don’t need so many universities and we need to value other sorts of post secondary/college education including getting professional qualifications on the job. Maybe encouraging people to go back to uni after they have worked for a few years. Evening degree study like Birkbeck for example. The target to get X% of young people to Uni was a silly idea in the first place.
The endless expansions of the university businesses to cater for foreign students, and lobbying of government to make laws favouring these businesses, is a bit of a mystery. Why good for UK? Just as part of GDP growth?
Another Labour and conservative fuckup coming home to roost
I trained at Teesside uni. It’s a good uni for certain courses. Had a really good time there.
I do worry about it though. If Teesside went under and closed it would be catastrophic for the local economy. Middlesbrough is very deprived but the local economy is propped up by students. Without them the town would die. Houses would go unoccupied and neglected. Small independent retailers would close.
I’ve said this before but how good is the average university, and the lecturers and other teaching staff when if you look at literally any YouTube video on a university level topic – the comments will literally be littered with:
“Omg. Thank you so much. You explained this concept better in 3 minutes than my lecturer did in 3 weeks.”
Does not matter what subject it is. Literally millions of videos filled with comments like these.
The average university teaching level is atrocious.
Or maybe, you know, stop the overproduction of elites?
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The education system in the UK has been broken for a long time…
Let’s end these’ brain-dead lefty’ factories and create something new in their place.
I don’t think people realise the unis that are struggling aren’t the bottom of the barrel unis but unis that in some cases have been operating for centuries. The system the government forced the unis into is completely unaffordable for a lot of unis to continue to operate.
A guy who used to work for UCAS came into our offices and was saying there’s going to be a media shit storm at some point around domestic students not getting into our best unis despite having the grades because they’re not as lucrative as international students.
I already feel like the fees are exorbitant. I dodged the top up fees thing and somehow I’m still paying mine off.
We should revoke University Status of the bottom 2/3rds. And ban students from the BRICS.
This is where I would go full Libertarian. Those courses that students want to study get funding, those that are not popular get culled. Simples.
Pretty sure every university would end up having enough money to run a handful of degrees that each one is especially good at