The universities of Winchester, Surrey, and Queen Mary have added themselves to the list of higher education institutions claiming financial deficits leading to job losses and course closures.
We have already had proposed cuts and restructures at other universities, each claiming shortfalls due to decreases in student numbers.
The University of Winchester has claimed it has a £6 million deficit. It plans to cut, amongst other things, its English language programme and make cuts to psychology, acting and various apprenticeships. So far 40 job cuts are planned. At the University of Surrey there are reports of a £10 million deficit, with voluntary redundancies offered and plans to sell university assets.
Queen Mary UCU is compiling a daily-updated list of cuts, bit.ly/cuts-uni, which include:
• University of Aberdeen (ending single honours degrees in Modern Languages and threats to make 30 staff redundant. This has now been withdrawn after a threat of six-day strike)
• University of Northumbria (£12.5 million shortfall claimed, voluntary redundancies being offered, but with compulsory redundancies likely to follow)
• Goldsmiths University (130 full-time equivalent posts at risk)
• University of Kent (up to 58 academic positions are at risk)
• University of York (the university's financial statements show a 15.6% fall in international student numbers, accompanied by a fall in home student numbers)
• Sheffield Hallam (more than 120 staff have been issued with "risk of redundancy" letters. This follows the university ripping up collectively-agreed contracts.)
• SOAS (34 staff at risk of “fire and rehire”)
• Open University (the university claims a £25 million deficit due to a decrease in student recruitment)
• Coventry University (in December 2023 the university warned it would make £95 million cuts over the next two years)
• Cardiff University (in November 2023 it announced an “unsustainable” financial situation, and would need to make cuts. Since, an announcement to cut Ancient languages)
• University of West of England ("#188 notices" of "consultation" about redundancy have been issued to 100 staff)
According to university managements, as well as reports from the Times and Financial Times, the reported budget deficits result from declining home and international student numbers. The drop in international student recruitment is put down to the continued "hostile environment" for migrants; further visa restrictions for spouses of international students; the impacts of Brexit on EU student recruitment; and the ongoing economic crisis in Nigeria is pointed to as a compounding factor. The Times claims a “looming loss of a third of overseas students”.
Such factors now play an outsized role, thanks to the shift from central funding (government-to-university, direct) towars student fees, particularly since 2011. Some Russell Group universities have been the “winners” of this change in financing, while less prestigious institutions have suffered more. Management at some universities have been overly optimistic about student numbers remaining stable or increasing and failed to plan for the precarious nature of their funding system.
In some cases, university management will argue there is a deficit when there is not one. SOAS is an example. Or management will weaponise alleged or real “deficits” opportunistically, to cut courses that are deemed less profitable to run.
Branches of the University and College Union (UCU) branches have been fighting their local cuts. Aberdeen University of Aberdeen UCU got cuts and redundancies withdrawn after threatening six days of strikes. Other UCU branches are beating the legal thresholds for industrial-action ballots and winning student support. Individual battles over cuts can also be linked up.
But there is a general pattern of universities responding to drops in student recruitment. The UCU (along with the two other major unions in higher education, Unite and Unison), needs a national strategy to tackle a continued wave of cuts. The National Union of Students should also be building campaigns to bring back central financing for HE and free education.
We want the struggle as much as possible on workers’ democratic terms: workers collectively deciding how to approach the issue and demanding employers open the books on their finances.
Such struggles an lay the groundwork for unions and students to substantially overhaul the university funding system - to make it centrally funded by taxing the rich, free for all, and with living grants for all.