UK politicians ‘nonplussed’ by university closures, warns v-c

UK politicians seem too “nonplussed” about the possible closure of a higher education institution, with the English sector having used up a lot of political capital on a tuition fee increase that will not fix the sector funding crisis, a leading vice-chancellor has warned.

Shitij Kapur, vice-chancellor of King’s College London, said universities had a tendency to think that left-wing governments would be “generous” towards them, but the restrictive student immigration policies of Canada and Australia proved that this was not always the case.

Speaking in a vice-chancellor question time panel at Times Higher Education’s THE Campus Live event, he welcomed the positive words from science minister Peter Kyle and others Labour ministers, but the real question would be whether the government could deliver more resource.

“They haven’t been able to, and I think we have used up a lot of political capital on the increase of fees, which is only for one year and as a net has made no difference to our financial situation because the national insurance increased by exactly the same amount,” he told delegates in Birmingham.

“From their point of view, the minister has already gone to bat for us once…against public opinion and I think they should be lauded for this brave political decision, but it still does not touch the financial situation of universities.”

Professor Kapur said the government had to make decisions about whether to provide further funds to English universities instead of giving money to other underfunded areas of society.

He also raised concerns that higher education lacked the “political clout” of other industries – comparing the outcry there would be over the closure of a steel plant with the possible shuttering of a British university.

“I think our political system is relatively nonplussed about the fact that something of that magnitude could possibly happen to what at the moment is Britain’s best industry,” he warned.

However, cautioning that the possible reintroduction of student number controls would have to be accompanied by variable fees for different subjects, he said any further interventions from government would have to be carefully done and not just a “wrench thrown into what is working now”.

The scale of the challenge facing the sector has been a recurring theme across the THE Campus Live event – as well as previous editions.

Julie Sanders, vice-chancellor of Royal Holloway, University of London, said the “perma-crisis” of the last few years had made the sector fatigued at a time when it had to be at its most daring and innovative.

Along with the need for other voices to advocate on behalf of the sector, Professor Sanders said university leaders needed to talk about their own successes more – particularly around widening access to disadvantaged students.

“Listening to those students and hearing those voices of future students is so vital and they need to be in these debates with us around what that 10-year vision is and where we need to go – and that needs to be a global and a civic conversation,” Professor Sanders said.

“We can’t just seem to be defensive all the time – it can’t be protection of subjects or universities or structures or systems simply for protection’s sake.”

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com