Thread by @DrLeeJones

UK govt has quietly announced a quasi-"bailout" of UK universities.

£280m extra research funding (£180m of it new) + grants (25%) and loans (75%) to cover up to 80% of lost overseas student fee income.

But there is a LOT of devil in the detail.

1/11

gov.uk/government/pub…

Funds will "be used to mostly support STEM" at "research-active universities". Teaching-intensive universities can get stuffed, apparently. As can Humanities and Social Sciences. An incredibly narrow and foolish vision of what society needs post-COVID.

2/11

Moreover, universities who want help "will be expected to show they are taking their own steps to make efficiencies" - i.e. austerity, job losses, etc (but probably not pay cuts for fat-cat VCs, useless senior management, or any reduction in bloated bureaucracy).

3/11

If you're not a Cambridge, Oxford or Imperial, you may well go bankrupt and undergo forced restructuring.

"providers [sic] at risk of closure will be able to apply to government to access a restructuring regime as a last resort... this will come with attached conditions."

4/11

Really the only bright spot in this announcement is the commitment to replace any research funding lost if the UK can no longer access EU Horizon 2020 schemes post-Brexit. This is not STEM-only. But will it be kept this way?

5/11

These very crude STEM-centric measures aren't likely to stabilise the sector or even work on their own terms.

Lost overseas fees in non-STEM will be part-covered by govt aid for... STEM. So HSS departments will be "rewarded" with austerity for them + aid for STEM subjects.

6/11

Very clever, a right-wing ideologue might think. "Let the woke go broke" and prop up STEM.

Not so fast.

Universities have complex internal economies where non-STEM fee income cross-subsidises STEM. A bit of top-up research funding for STEM won't compensate enough.

7/11

And if austerity means job cuts in HSS, educational quality will worsen, risking future student recruitment and thus fee income.

Long term, this risks the sustainability of STEM subjects by undermining the internal cross-subsidy.

8/11

The real problem here, which this "bailout" fails to address, is marketisation.

Universities have become dependent on fluctuating market demand, making rational long-term planning impossible.

Teaching grants have been largely eliminated and research is under-funded.

9/11

Universities are forced to part-fund STEM, and research generally, through HSS surpluses and lucrative overseas student fees.

Hence any "market shock", like COVID-19, or attempt to tweak the system (e.g. discourage study of HSS subjects), risks disaster.

10/11

The only real solution is to de-marketise universities, restructure the sector around the long-term needs of society (NOT simply "the economy"), and fund higher education sustainably as a public good, alongside much greater investment in vocational and technical education.

11/11