back
18 comments
One of the key killing factors is the sheer waiting time on a grant. It used to take a matter of weeks and months to apply for a grant and wait for a result on whether you got it.

Now, we're talking on the order of months to a year. Imaging telling a talented grad student who wants to work with you to wait a year to secure them a place.

This prompts a lot of researchers to pre-emptively apply for anything and everything at all times, increasing the needless competition and slowing down the vetting process immensely.

Has Brexit played a role in this? When I was in and around British universities, ~20 years ago, EU grants were a significant source of income.
Massively. Funding got incredibly competitive when Brexit happened
Its also refusal of the middle eastern states to fund studying abroad out of fear of radicalization in the uk. You know you are in trouble when qatar puts you on a watchlist..
The UK student loan book regularly changes hands on the secondaries market at half of face value. Make of that what you will. Draw whatever conclusions you might about the market value of some of the education provided.

I support anyone's wish to gain an education, including the study of esoteric subjects if that is what interests them. However many young people have been mis-sold an education in the belief that it would result in a well paying job. Of course the young are the easiest people of all upon which to perpetrate such a scam. There are very few with a film studies degree, who manage to secure a job as film director. About 500 people every year study golf course management. We have about 2500 golf courses.

> The UK student loan book regularly changes hands on the secondaries market at half of face value. Make of that what you will. Draw whatever conclusions you might about the market value of some of the education provided.

The price of the debt says nothing about the value of education. The price is simply a reflection of the likelihood the debt will be paid.

The debt will be paid when the person receiving the education is able to obtain a halfway-decent-paying job. If the debts aren't being paid, it means the education didn't result in employment.

Considering the whole point of education is to be prepared for a job, it means the education is not worth very much.

Employment is not the whole point of education. The modern university started about 200 years ago in Germany with humanist ideals. An educated population was seen as a value in itself - many subjects taught weren't even very practical and that is still true today.
University systems worldwide will need to consolidate and combine in order to preserve themselves, their rich collections and institutions, if they want to survive, because populations are plummeting globally.
They trivied for centuries on far lower population
Some British universities are dying.

They expanded university capacity more than was sustainable. Now it'll retract.

It's a crisis for the people involved, but not for society as a whole.

Can you give me some numbers? Like how many students were there 30 years ago, and how many now?
From memory about 0.5M in 1980 and about 3M in 2025.
Ok. Thank you for the reply.
The article spends some lines blaming this on private capital but only hand waves and on it. I would expect something more concrete.
It's because they depend on foreign students for their income because they are limited on how much they can charge domestic students. Recent anti immigration sentiment has caused a massive fall in foreign student numbers.
the university system(s) as it is can't die soon enough
They're dying because nobody cares about them. If nobody cares about them, why would anybody care that they're dying?