Thinking the unthinkable

Would it really be so bad if universities closed?

There is now talk about British universities going bankrupt. Inevitably, we have the elite of British higher education saying that it is unthinkable that universities should be closed, even if it requires more and more money that will eventually come from people working night shifts, double shifts, dirty jobs, and paying more and more taxes.

It is easy to see why closing universities should be seen as unthinkable. That is something that does not happen very much. Universities seem to last much longer than anything else or almost anything else. Look at lists of the world's top ten companies in 1924 and 2024. In most lists, after a hundred years, none of the companies will be in the top ten.

However, comparing universities in 1924 and 2024, we see much more stability. Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, and Chicago are still in the world's top ten. French and German universities have fallen to be replaced by Caltech, MIT, and Stanford, but they are still world-class. Undoubtedly, the elite Chinese universities will join them at the peak in a few years.

Or consider the case of Al-Azhar, founded in 970 or 972 during the Fatimid dynasty, which was replaced by the Ayyubids, the Mamluk sultanate, and the Ottoman Empire. Then there was the brief Napoleonic occupation, the Muhammed Ali dynasty, a nominally independent Khedivate under British protection, and since 1952 a republic. The Fatimids, the Ayyubids, the Mamluks, and the Ottomans are long gone, but Al-Azhar remains. Likewise, Charles University in Prague, founded in 1348, has survived the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Holy Roman Empire, the Austrian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Czechoslovak Republic, the Third Reich's Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

Perhaps universities have a secret that preserves their excellence while empires and companies crumble and vanish. Or perhaps they have learned the arts of influence and persuasion to survive whoever is the country's ruler.

Philip Augar, former banker and author of the 2019 Review of Education and Funding says about closing universities that “I think that’s actually unthinkable, so something has to be done and there has to be a behind-the-scenes support package to ensure that the university doesn’t fail.”

Why should this be so unthinkable? After all, dozens of companies have closed across the UK over the last few decades. High street shops, factories, warehouses, publishers, and almost every kind of activity have been decimated. Remember all those coal mines and shipyards? Why should universities be the only institutions exempt from the consequences of competition or failure?

Augar says it's unthinkable because of the consequences for students, staff, and local regions and, of course, the damage to the UK’s international reputation. It seems unlikely that the point about students is valid. Any plausible scenario will mean that students will be transferred to similar and financially more secure institutions. As for staff, yes, more will be unemployed, at least temporarily. But they will be much better provided for than the hundreds of thousands who have lost jobs or never held jobs because of Covid, austerity policies, or the vain pursuit of net zero.

The bit about the UK’s international reputation is frankly a bit of a joke. Several reputation surveys claim to analyse the reputation of global universities. They usually come to similar conclusions: the reputation of British universities, however that is measured, has declined over the last few decades.

According to the Times Higher Education (THE) analysis of their world university rankings:

“But while the top of the ranking is still dominated by US and UK institutions, the data behind it reveals a more worrisome trend: both countries are seeing a rapid decline in their average research and teaching reputation.

The UK’s teaching reputation has dropped by 3 per cent since last year and research reputation by 5 per cent, based on more than 93,000 responses to THE’s Academic Reputation Survey, in which academics choose up to 15 institutions they believe excel in teaching and, separately, research.

UK institutions now take 13 per cent of the share of votes for teaching and 12.8 per cent for research, representing a steady decline over the past decade from 18.9 per cent and 18.1 per cent respectively.

Part of the reason for the drop is that the reputation survey has expanded in recent years, with scholars from more countries participating, leading to a broader distribution of votes. But experts suggested that there were other factors at play, too.

Irene Tracey, Oxford’s vice-chancellor, told THE that the UK’s declining reputation was her biggest concern for the future of the sector, along with the current financial crisis.

“This matters more than maybe people realise. We’ve got to be really mindful of that and mindful of the decisions that need to be taken now in order to address that slippage,” she said, adding that it was important that the UK “has a good slug of our universities in that top batch” of global league tables.

Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said the decline in teaching reputation was down to underfunding.

“When you underfund university teaching, as we have been doing, the result is often worse staff-to-student ratios, problems with marking and evaluation and inadequate contact hours or class sizes. If you do this while other countries take the opposite route, your relative position is bound to deteriorate,” he said.”

The reputation metrics in Round University Rankings, QS World University Rankings, and the US News Best Global Universities tell a sad and similar story.

So, if a few universities close, it will only accelerate a trend that has been there for a long time. And, who knows, it might even do some good.