Category Archives: Higher education

UK universities need rescue package to stop ‘domino effect’ of going under

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Experts say the next head of the Office for Students must oversee a programme that will protect higher education

The new head of the Office for Students (OfS) will have to oversee rescue plans to avoid a “domino effect” with a number of universities going under, experts have warned.

The new government’s Department for Education (DfE) announced on Tuesday that it had accepted the resignation of the OfS’s controversial chair, James Wharton, a former Tory MP who ran Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign. Lord Wharton, who was given the job of running the independent regulator in 2021 despite having no experience of higher education, did not give up the Tory whip in the Lords and was widely criticised for being too close to the Conservative government.

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Columbia removes three deans over text messages with alleged ‘antisemitic tropes’

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University president says private text exchange during school event was ‘unacceptable and deeply upsetting’

Three Columbia University deans have been indefinitely removed from their positions after sending text messages that the university president said included antisemitic tropes.

In a message sent on Monday, the Columbia president, Minouche Shafik, said that text messages “revealed behavior and sentiments that were not only unprofessional, but also, disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes”, the Columbia Spectator reported.

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Birmingham University censoring student beliefs over Gaza camp evictions, court hears

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University is taking legal action to shut down pro-Palestine encampment on Edgbaston campus

The University of Birmingham is censoring students’ beliefs about Gaza by seeking to shut down a pro-Palestine encampment on its grounds, the high court has heard.

Birmingham is one of several universities taking legal action to try to evict student protesters, with a case brought by the University of Nottingham due to be heard before the same judge on Friday.

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Council tax: final-year students warned they could get surprise bills

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Students are exempt during their course but as soon as they finish their final year they are liable to pay

Final-year university students have been urged to check that they do not owe council tax for the last few weeks of their rented accommodation.

While students are exempt from the tax during the course, they are liable to pay as soon as they finish their final year.

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Anti-DEI law forces closure of University of Utah LGBT center

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News comes amid anti-diversity legislation that has gutted inclusionary programs at several public universities

After 21 years of service, the University of Utah’s LGBT Resource Center will close on Friday, as the second-largest public university in the state comes into compliance with HB 261, Utah’s version of the anti-DEI legislation that has swept the country and gutted inclusionary programs at several public universities.

“As we’ve evaluated how best to comply with the legislation, I want to be clear that we’ve faced very difficult decisions,” the vice-president for student affairs, Lori McDonald, said in a statement. “The law and subsequent guidance require a foundational change in how we approach student support, and we will follow the law. This isn’t about changing the words we use; we’re changing how we approach the work.”

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Job threat for Australian university staff as claims international student cuts are being weaponised

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Leading experts have described Labor’s controversial migration policy as a ‘recipe for chaos’ set to hit campuses

University staff have been threatened with deep job cuts because of the federal government’s proposed international student cap, raising concerns the controversial policy is being weaponised as an “excuse” to slash jobs.

The draft bill, introduced to parliament last month, would give the education minister powers to set a maximum number of new international student enrolments. Leading policy experts have described it as a “recipe for chaos”.

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Next government faces hard choices on English universities, say experts

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Ministers left with unpalatable options of raising tuition fees, making grants or capping student numbers, says IFS

The next government faces “unpalatable” choices between raising tuition fees, making direct grants or capping student numbers to rescue universities in England from their financial black hole, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned.

The thinktank said universities that relied on teaching UK students for the bulk of their income were most vulnerable, calculating that undergraduate tuition fees would now be £12,000 if they had kept pace with inflation, rather than the £9,250 rate frozen since 2016.

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UK universities valued more than institutions like parliament and BBC, finds survey

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King’s College London poll finds people rank universities behind only the NHS, armed forces and royal family

The British public values the UK’s universities more highly than the legal system or the BBC, according to a survey of attitudes towards higher education by King’s College London.

Prof Bobby Duffy, the director of King’s College London’s policy institute, said universities came behind only the NHS, the armed forces and the royal family in a league table of UK institutions considered to be among the best in the world by the public.

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‘I’ve waited a long time for this’: woman earns Stanford master’s degree at 105

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Virginia Hislop left school to care for her family during the second world war; 83 years later she received diploma

Virginia Hislop took 83 years to get her master’s degree from Stanford University. Now, at 105 years old, she’s finally graduated.

“My goodness, I’ve waited a long time for this,” she said, walking across the stage on Sunday to receive her diploma. She was cheered on by her family, grandchildren and the 2024 graduating class.

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Chinese firm sought to use UK university links to access AI for possible military use

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Exclusive: Revelation of emails to Imperial College scientists comes amid growing concerns about security risk posed by academic tie-ups with China

A Chinese state-owned company sought to use a partnership with a leading British university in order to access AI technology for potential use in “smart military bases”, the Guardian has learned.

Emails show that China’s Jiangsu Automation Research Institute (Jari) discussed deploying software developed by scientists at Imperial College London for military use.

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More than half of UK students working long hours in paid jobs

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Lack of maintenance support is creating two-tier higher education system, say experts

More than half of full-time students are working long hours in jobs to support themselves at university, spending nearly two days a week in paid employment during term time, owing to the cost of living crisis.

A survey of 10,000 full-time UK undergraduates by the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) found a record 56% had paid employment while they were studying, working an average of 14.5 hours each week.

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University of California workers ordered to end strike over Palestine protest response

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Thousands of academic workers returned to the job after weeks-long strike and vowed more actions to come

Thousands of University of California academic workers who went on strike across six campuses protesting administrators’ response to pro-Palestinian protests returned to the job on Monday under court order, but their union vowed more protests to come.

An Orange county superior court judge late on Friday granted a temporary restraining order sought by the university, which asserted that the walkout stemmed from non-labor issues and that it violated the no-strike clause in the union’s contract.

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Man arrested after four US academics stabbed in park during China visit

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Group from Cornell College and a Chinese person who tried to help have non life-threatening injuries after attack in Jilin province

Four US college instructors teaching in China have been stabbed while visiting a public park, US officials have said.

The tutors from Cornell College in Iowa were at the park in Jilin province, north-eastern China, with a faculty member from Beihua University on Monday when the attack occurred, the college president Jonathan Brand said in a statement. The private college in Iowa partners with the university near Jilin City.

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Media studies are popular, dynamic and have ‘profound impact’, report says

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Degrees often derided as ‘low-value’ or ‘Mickey Mouse’ subjects are praised as vital to UK’s £108bn creative industries

Media and communications studies, often derided as “soft”, “low-value” or “Mickey Mouse” subjects, are in fact popular, dynamic and have “profound impact”, according to a report.

The British Academy study says that rather than being “low value”, such courses play a vital role in the UK’s £108bn creative industries and have become increasingly relevant in a world grappling with new technologies, artificial intelligence and the dangers of disinformation.

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Nigeria takes up case of its Teesside University students ordered out of UK

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High Commission to meet leaders at university after currency crash in home country meant students couldn’t pay for tuition

Delegates from the Nigerian high commission in London are to meet bosses from Teesside University to discuss the treatment of a group of students who were ordered to leave the UK after failing to meet tuition repayments.

The Nigerian students were left distressed and in some cases suicidal after they were involuntarily withdrawn from their courses and ordered to leave, in what has been described as a “serious diplomatic issue”.

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Rishi Sunak promises to create 100,000 high-skilled apprenticeships a year

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Conservatives’ policy would be funded by scrapping ‘rip-off degrees’ with high drop-out rates and low job progression

Rishi Sunak has promised to create 100,000 high-skilled apprenticeships a year by scrapping “rip-off degrees” if he wins the general election.

In the latest of a flurry of announcements as the Conservatives try to narrow Labour’s 20-point poll lead, the party pledged to replace “low-quality” university degrees with apprenticeships.

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Sussex university students warned they may not graduate if fees remain unpaid

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Those struggling to pay debts include students from overseas who have seen the value of their currency crash

Hundreds of students at the University of Sussex have been warned they may be unable to graduate or re-register for the next academic year if they fail to pay outstanding debts.

Those affected include students from Nigeria and Iran who have been struggling to pay their fees after the value of their currencies crashed. Other international students, as well as UK students, are also among those in debt.

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Labour says early general election leaves many government commitments ‘in the bin’ – as it happened

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Bills, including smoking ban for people born after 2009, unlikely to become law before 4 July vote

Rishi Sunak is now speaking at an event in Ilkeston in Derbyshire. It is in the Erewash constituency, where the Tory MP Maggie Throup had a majority of 10,606 at the last election.

He repeats the claim that a Labour government would cost every family £2,000.

Labour’s spending promises cost £16 billion per year in 2028-29, or £58.9 billion over the next four years.

But their revenue raisers would only collect £6.2 billion per year in 2028-29, or £20.4 billion over the next four years.

I don’t really think the arrangements in Scotland for the school holidays have really been anywhere near the calculations made by the prime minister …

I think it would be respectful if that was the case but it’s pretty typical of the lack of respect shown to Scotland that we’re an afterthought from the Westminster establishment and particularly the Conservative establishment.

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Next government must make hard university funding decisions, fast

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Labour sees no electoral gain in flagging sector’s funding crisis – but losses cannot be sustained much longer

Why are universities in such financial dire straits? According to one sector leader, it’s because they are losing money on two of their three income streams, while their third source is under attack by the government.

“We are already in a state where teaching home students operates at a loss, doing research operates at a loss, and the international student market has been diminished by the government’s rhetoric and policy. And those are the three areas where universities get their income,” said Rachel Hewitt, chief executive of the MillionPlus association of modern universities that includes Bath Spa, Wolverhampton and Sunderland.

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Ex-ministers warn UK universities will go bust without higher fees or funding

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Exclusive: Vice-chancellors suggest fee rise of £2,000 to £3,500 a year, but others say that is ‘politically impossible’

Vice-chancellors and former ministers are warning that the cash crisis facing universities is so serious that the next government will have to urgently raise tuition fees or increase funding to avoid bankruptcies within two years.

They said the state of university finances was more dire than revealed in last week’s report by the Office for Students, which forecast 40% of England’s universities would end this year in the red.

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