The view from the bridge

“There’s hope, and then there’s expectation,” said one world-weary vice-chancellor when asked last month about the prospects of the broken higher education funding system being fixed.

It’s a maxim that can be applied to much else in UK higher education as we look ahead to 2024.

Let’s start with the hope.

I recently asked a panel of university leaders to imagine they were the minister in charge of higher education, with the power to implement one policy immediately and irrevocably. What would it be?

The answers ranged from dealing with financial realities – tying the tuition fee cap to inflation or the restoration of student maintenance grants – to loftier ambitions: Cara Aitchison, vice-chancellor of Cardiff Metropolitan University, called for “a return to our origins of four or five hundred years ago, when the thought leadership of universities led government, and not the other way around”.

What, then, of expectations for the year ahead?

Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, president of the University of Galway, foresaw universities playing a crucial role in key agendas, such as championing ethical considerations as artificial intelligence takes off.

But like Aitchison, he also predicted continued tension over their place in society: “The tenet of the Kalven Report that ‘the university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic’ will be increasingly challenging to maintain.

“It will seem, in a polarised discourse, that our role as centres of respectful, informed debate, discussion and dissent cannot hold. But, if not here in universities, where?”

Others also predicted a year in which challenges were at the fore.

“It’s getting tougher, and 2024 doesn’t look to bring any relief,” said Sir Chris Husbands, who stood down as vice-chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University last month.

He foresaw pain on multiple fronts including funding, visa controls, softening domestic demand and the cost of living. And yet, he said, it was a year not to wilt but to rise to the challenges.

“Universities will need to look harder and harder at the operating models and their relationships with each other: they’ll need to wonder whether a sector in which 150 institutions each attempt digital transformation, or student services, or research services individually is fit for the future…It’ll be a tough year, but the opportunities for creative leadership are vast.”

For the UK, one of the big events of 2024 is likely to be a general election, but Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, warned universities not to expect too much from it.

The inevitable culture war aside, “It remains oddly unclear exactly what the broader political shenanigans might mean for higher education,” he said.

“Will student and institutional funding change? Will there be new limits on student numbers or unfashionable courses? Will we see a new attempt to push further and higher education closer together into something labelled ‘tertiary’? It all remains unclear.

“In the end, I suspect we will see only modest changes…I will stick my neck out and say 2024 is likely to be a big year politically but a small year when it comes to hard new higher education policy.”

Sir Anthony Finkelstein, president of City, University of London, sounded a note of optimism in predicting that “the message that it is not the oversupply of graduates, but the undersupply of suitably skilled employment” that was hobbling UK productivity would start to gain traction.

However, like Hillman he did not foresee any big shifts in political momentum for higher education.

“There is an understanding that innovation, and quite fundamental changes to the university workforce are required to address the financial sustainability challenge, but with thin margins it will be difficult to achieve,” he said. “Some established institutions will look very vulnerable, and closure of activities and redundancies seem inevitable.”

These forecasters are pretty unambiguous in predicting tough times ahead, then, although not without notes of optimism – Nishan Canagarajah, vice-chancellor of the University of Leicester, predicted that 2024 could be a “transformative year for students’ learning experience”, with “new approaches to harness the power of AI” among the factors contributing to innovation.

This, perhaps, reflects the one certainty when it comes to crystal ball-gazing: while many of the New Year predictions offered in this column a year ago proved accurate, no one foresaw the truly seismic events of 2023, such as the explosion of ChatGPT or the Israel-Gaza conflict.

That means these predictions can only go so far. As Hillman puts it: “If there were to be another big exogenous event, then things will look very different even without much in the way of new higher education policy.”

john.gill@timeshighereducation.com

The panel’s New Year predictions in full

Cara Aitchison, vice-chancellor and president, Cardiff Metropolitan University

1. Collaboration will be the most (over)used word in higher education, with the sector confused as to whether collaboration means playing nicely, merging or being taken over following some yet-to-be-formulated new regulatory requirement or legislation. The majority of universities will post deficits in 2024, and the real beneficiaries of the shaken-out HE landscape from 2025 will be those cities with multiple universities that develop strategic alliances spanning the triple helix of government, industry and education.

2. Wales will have a new first minister and, most likely, a new education minister. The current education minister, Jeremy Miles, is one of only two major contenders for the top job, and even if he does not become first minister, a significant shuffle to the centre ground and away from the current older left-leaning grouping seems likely. With both contenders ensuring that the lineage of straight white men as first minister of Wales is finally broken, I feel confident that the new first minister will continue to prioritise race equality in education within an agenda for an anti-racist Wales; this recent but long-overdue initiative has been embraced by universities and schools across Wales, supported by the leadership shown by DARPL (Diversity and Anti-Racist Professional Learning), winner of this year’s Times Higher Education Award for Outstanding Contribution to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

3. Mental health and well-being concerns will be extended to senior leadership teams and professional services, previously blamed for causing the pressures of workload and stress among academic staff and students. This new empathy, compassion and alliance, spanning all university staff and students, will speak with one voice in making the case for a wholesale revision of higher education funding in all four nations and funding schemes across the UK.

4. In leadership and governance, the Covid-related period of relative stability at the top, with average v-c tenures lasting longer than the four or five years seen pre-Covid, will be reversed as the job becomes ever more challenging. Some boards, councils and courts will be found wanting as the pace of change accelerates and the demographic and experience of older members bears limited resemblance to that of current political, industry and higher education leaders and the demands on them in a rapidly changing and challenging global economic climate.

5. International student recruitment will become even more volatile, with the UK government’s consideration of caps on international students thwarted by the outcome of a UK general election and a Labour win. The HE “winners” will be those universities that manage to recruit from all five continents and do not rely simply on the big markets of China, India and Nigeria to sustain their business model.

Nick Hillman, director, Higher Education Policy Institute

From the vantage point of a thinktank, 2024 looks like being a really big year politically. It is almost certain to include a general election, and even if it doesn’t, we will be in the midst of an election campaign by the end of the year.

Moreover, the polls suggest that we could see the first shift from right to left in over a generation, since 1997. Regrettably, we can be fairly certain that universities will be at the centre of the culture war in the heat of an election campaign, but beyond this, it remains oddly unclear exactly what the broader political shenanigans might mean for higher education.

Will student and institutional funding change? Will there be new limits on student numbers or unfashionable courses? Will we see a new attempt to push further and higher education closer together into something labelled “tertiary”? It all remains unclear.

In the end, I suspect we will see only modest changes even if Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party secures a big majority because they are reconciled to high fees, they want to focus more on other parts of education (like early years) and because change takes time and costs money.

So I will stick my neck out and say 2024 is likely to be a big year politically but a small year when it comes to hard new higher education policies, though we could see a recalibration in the tenor of the relationship between Whitehall and the higher education sector.

Of course, if there were to be a big exogenous event, like a further major geopolitical upset, then things will look very different even without much in the way of new higher education policy.

Sir Chris Husbands, former vice-chancellor, Sheffield Hallam University, and founding partner, Higher Futures

It’s getting tougher – and 2024 doesn’t look to bring any relief. A fixed fee for – essentially – more than a decade. Stronger visa controls creating increasing difficulties in an already very competitive international market. A softening of domestic demand, which is not tracking the demographics in the way every model predicted a few years ago.

A cost-of-living crisis undermining student and staff well-being. The near certain election of 2024 unlikely to bring significant change to the economics of higher education even as it may change rather more than the mood music.

And yet, and yet: there is a yawning gap between the social and cultural importance of higher education and the economic realities. It’s this gap in which creative institutional leadership needs to work: telling the positive story of the critical importance of higher education in an advanced economy and the social transformations that, day in and day out, universities accomplish.

The story for 2024 and beyond will be the extent to which the undeniable challenges are met with a genuinely creative response.

Universities will need to look harder and harder at the operating models and their relationships with each other: they’ll need to wonder whether a sector in which 150 institutions each attempt digital transformation, or student services, or research services and so on individually is fit for the future; to ask hard questions about efficiencies in the use of the year, the teaching and research estate and the way their can work together in a common enterprise.

It’ll be a tough year, but the opportunities for creative leadership are vast.

Sir Anthony Finkelstein, president, City, University of London

An election approaches, likely but not certainly late in the year. Both Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer will be required to form platforms and narratives, we will see substantial intra-party political contest as these, to some extent, cohere. For the Conservatives, with the strong possibility of a substantial loss, at least a portion of this contest will be devoted to establishing a position for a period in opposition and a leadership challenge.

The US elections will be uncomfortable and polarising, with a Republican Party committed to a “conspiracist worldview”. A weak Joe Biden performance will nevertheless carry the day, creating space for a realignment.

The war in Ukraine will grind on, and the only prospect of change will come from the play of power in Moscow with a weakening but still dangerous Vladimir Putin. China will continue to push the boundaries of the international order in Taiwan and the South China Sea but will steer clear of direct action.

There will be a long hot summer. Climate change will seem more real, with water stress, migration challenges and conflict in the ungoverned spaces.

Israel-Hamas will have a stand-off with continuing violent interludes as Islamist terror is suppressed. Bouts of shuttle diplomacy will weaken the civilian toll but seem unlikely to yield a lasting peace.

There will be a technology upswing with a vast range of creative applications of machine learning improving lives.

The message that it is not the oversupply of graduates, but the undersupply of suitably skilled employment opportunities produced by the UK economy, will begin to land politically. Higher education will continue to struggle with its financial sustainability challenge. There is an understanding that innovation, and quite fundamental changes to the university workforce, are required to address this challenge – but with thin margins, it will be difficult to achieve.

There will be limited changes in the sector, but some established institutions will look very vulnerable; closure of activities and redundancies seem inevitable. Support for research will increasingly be problematic, with no cross-subsidy from teaching, the systematic underfunding of the university research base is exposed. This is a risk to UK prosperity.

Foreign students will continue to come to the UK, but we cannot rely on the continuing rapid growth of this market. Digital disruption and transformation of higher education will stop being a slogan and will become a reality, but it is doubtful that universities will have the investment capacity to deliver its potential. The Office for Students will not learn from past mistakes.

And…as I predicted correctly last year, professors will continue to bemoan the state of international affairs, holiday in Provence and enjoy the occasional curry.

Nishan Canagarajah, president and vice-chancellor, University of Leicester

I am hopeful that 2024 will be a transformative year for our students’ learning experience. Universities are investing more energy into delivering the high-quality education our students deserve; Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) preparations and the recent results announcement have placed education on the top of vice-chancellors’ agendas.

We are adapting to new technologies and applying pedagogical innovations; an example for this is the embedding of empathy in the University of Leicester’s medical curriculum. Colleagues across the sector are developing new approaches to harness the power of AI, and are becoming ever more adept at providing digitally enhanced learning opportunities – working in partnership with their students’ unions.

All these developments will lead to an outstanding year for students in higher education – and it will be an outstanding year for Leicester, who will secure promotion to the top league.

Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, president, University of Galway

Universities will lead by exploring positive, ethical opportunities for AI, where ethical AI will increasingly be a need to be fulfilled.

Universities will be expected to follow but will need to lead at the crossroads between being apart from and a part of society.

The tenet of the Kalven Report that “the university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic” will be increasingly challenging to maintain. It will seem, in a polarised discourse, that our role as centres of respectful, informed debate, discussion and dissent cannot hold. But if not here in universities, where?