Hull University is interested in buying the campus to be vacated by the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside when it relocates the bulk of its academic and administrative activities to Lincoln.
ULH is applying to the Privy Council to change its name to the University of Lincoln and is working out plans for moving several hundred staff 50 miles.
David Chiddick, ULH vice-chancellor, said the decision to move his university's operation had been driven by declining student demand but said that the city of Hull was not being abandoned as he was investing heavily in a new city-centre site. Programmes in business, art and design, computing and possibly architecture were likely to be on offer there for about 1,500 students in partnership with Hull College.
Professor Chiddick said he expected 5,000 full-time undergraduates to be in place in Lincoln within five years. Students at Hull would not be forced to move part way through their studies.
Competition from the University of Hull and overlapping provision had been part of the reason for the sharp decline in recruitment at ULH over the past five years, he said.
Hull University may take over some of ULH's academic programmes. Hull vice-chancellor David Drewry said discussions with ULH were at an early stage. "We shall be discussing how to respond to this decision to relocate provision to Lincoln and how to provide clarity in offering courses and qualifications to potential students in the region," he said.
The timescale for the move has yet to be worked out but the campus sale was being strongly supported by the Higher Education Funding Council for England through its collaboration fund, said Professor Chiddick.
Lecturers' union Natfhe is giving the news a cautious welcome as there are concerns about student numbers and possible staff redundancies. A spokesman said precise numbers of staff needing to move to Lincoln would not be known until June but he said management appeared to be working to minimise potential redundancies.