The Student Room Group

Is UK HE shrinking past the point of no return?

Perhaps one day we can go back to HE on fairer terms: Most recent updates
(in the past fortnight, approximately; last updated 20 June 2025) - from: https://qmucu.org/qmul-transformation/uk-he-shrinking/

Bangor is cutting 78 jobs
Arts University Bournemouth is looking at 75 compulsory redundancies
de Montfort is cutting 80 posts and attempting fire & rehire
Derby is merging four colleges into two
Exeter is in its last ‘generous’ voluntary severance scheme
Goldsmiths has opened yet another voluntary severance scheme
Greenwich is planning to cut 300 posts
Lancaster is looking to lose 400FTE, having already lost 50 colleagues to VS
Leicester is trying to shut down the departments of languages, chemistry, and education
Liverpool Hope announced 39 potential redundancies
Stirling has opened a voluntary severance scheme
Surrey is trying to move Professional Service staff on new contracts from a subsidiary firm, with worse pay and conditions.
UEA is making 8 compulsory redundancies

Read from the UCU link. Not sad about Goldsmiths but sad about Birkbeck. Also surprisingly York University is there (elsewhere). What this means: a university degree from a university that might not exist in a couple of years.

Reply 1

Telling that most of the unis making cutbacks are mickey mouse ex-polys... I don't think we'll see anything like this at Imperial or Oxbridge

Reply 2

Original post
by seri0uscandidate
Telling that most of the unis making cutbacks are mickey mouse ex-polys... I don't think we'll see anything like this at Imperial or Oxbridge

Imperial is also accepting below standard students - quick one year expensive MSCs and they are all out of their hair. Imperial used to do good evening courses, not sure if they still do. Also I read that Leicester Uni is closing down their languages department. Not first choice for MFL students, but someone I knew said other courses were interesting, so they wanted to combine it with a language. I can't think of anything worse than having a degree in languages (solely!) from a university that no longer offers languages. I don't mean mergers and fancy titles, just no languages, full stop. Basically the gold standard will always be Oxbridge. So you will see your former lecturers in the queue practising their moves like in The Full Monty dole queue. I bet the Student Room is full of former lecturers.

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