University of Sheffield faces £50m shortfall due to student decline
October 17, 2024
University of Sheffield faces £50m shortfall due to student decline
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7v64e6vj2yo
by TwentyCharactersShor
27 comments
Perhaps building a business model on enticing Chinese students to come and study at your university was a bad idea.
If that were to ever dry up (like it is now), then you’re going to sink pretty quickly. We have too many universities in the UK and too many that are trying to ride the international student wave.
Invest more in technical colleges and practical-type schools.
Its worse then just the uni. Sheffield is such a student city that this will have a knock on effect to a lot of local businesses
Ah yes, I see everything is going according to the plan. You’re killing the academic and scientific community in the UK, but hey, the masses are super happy as this satisfies their xenophobic passions.
We’re going to see this with a lot of unis unfortunately. I trained at Teesside and am originally from the area. My father did 2 degrees there back when it was a polytechnic transitioning to university in the early 90s. It has a special place in my heart.
Without the university the local economy would absolutely tank. The Middlesbrough economy (as well as the surrounding areas) is already hanging on by it’s fingernails as it is. If the university goes under it will be catastrophic for the area.
We either need to have an agreement that universities get financial support, or they get nothing but universities cannot be favoured based on status. If Teesside, Sheffield, Northumbria or other smaller universities are left to struggle we should expect it of all of them. I just don’t want to see universities die, but some (Oxford springs to mind) getting grants to survive just because they’re special and old.
All of this is due to Tony Blair… One of his many legacies which we are paying the price for.
I went from teaching 50 UK/EU students on a module one year to teaching 150 predominantly Chinese students the next year. I moved jobs, just saying that to be clear that I am no longer affiliated and haven’t been for some time.
I am still in touch with several prominent researchers in my field, including some very senior Chinese professors in our field. One of those is in charge of international relations for a Chinese top ten (and now global top 100) university. He gets begged, quite literally, by UK Universities for meetings, to discuss sending Chinese students to the UK.
It’s dried up for two reasons: The constant anti-China rhetoric in anglophile countries is having a huge detrimental effect, racism against the Chinese is getting worse and the Chinese know this. They used to look up to countries like the UK, Australia and the US, but that is changing.
The other, more significant reason is that China’s academia has reached a point where it outcompetes the UK, with ease. Better funding, more capacity, better facilities… But most of all, many really well educated Chinese professors that are returning to China on ever increasing remuneration deals (wags plus research budget) who offer better quality education back home.
Sheffield really put all its eggs in the ‘attract Chinese students!’ basket and it is going to backfire spectacularly. I do wish my alma mater all the luck and good will in the world, but it’s time to rethink priorities.
Ultimately trying to design our universities to be profit generating entities was a stupid thing to do, since their goal isn’t to generate profit, it’s to educate people. If you try to reshape them in a way that makes them profitable, it’s going to come at the expense of their actual goal.
We need to stop setting up public services like businesses and then being surprised when they aren’t as profitable as businesses.
So, there are so-called educational consultants who have Instagram accounts where they make ‘ educational reels’ about studying in the UK. These are international students themselves and have some kind of agreement with the university in helping to recruit international students who pay so much fees (making their parents take loans). Once the students come here to do some random degree, they cant then get sponsored jobs and if they do get it, they have to pay once again lot of fee to bring dependants (once they are married – upto 10k). And they dont even have visa safety as they can be laid off anytime. My only question if these so called ‘student recruiters ‘ get any commission.
Oh well.
Isn’t capatalism great until it fucks you?
50 unis created since 2017. Unsustainable. No wonder subsidies HE is so unpalatable.
Perhaps the Senate members should take a pay cut to reflect changing reality
I mean who’s going to come and study in an ok uni for £20k annualy plus cost of living? I have a cousin from Greece who really wanted to come to Sheffield. He had really great grades and everything but simply didn’t have the money. He didn’t even bother with the application. He went to the Netherlands instead.
If tuition fees go up or cuts are made to vital services, it could really affect the quality of higher education. And there are may other unis facing similar struggles!
If tuition fees were funded by the government, many problems would go away. A limited number of students would be a good thing, and would eliminate the incentive for universities to rely on international student money
I’m so glad my British child has another European passport. My hope for him is one of the best universities in Europe, ETH. 900GBP per term…although the cost of living will be a challenge.
Strange how they once survived without tuition fees.
I just think we should get rid of some of these useless degrees that people don’t get a job in and are just a quick cash grab
Is there a good breakdown anywhere of expenses vs costs?
I’m probably missing something but it seems the amount per student these universities get from domestic student should be enough to cover teaching most 3 year degrees?
I never felt I got value for money back when I was paying around 3k a year even without considering the extra the government was giving them
I can’t tell if it’s all going on chancellors salaries and research or running costs are just higher than I think
The Tory government, leading up to election, prohibited non-research students to bring their families, raised the wage level for work sponsorship, and made a hell of a lot of noise reviewing the post-graduate visa. these immigration changes were probably intended to target Asian and African students, but all international students were equally affected.
The international students merely reacted to the signals.
Time for many universities to die and for the surviving ones to go back on their core mission: education
ALL UK universities are in tens of millions of pounds of debt.
They became too addicted to the foreign student money crack and became businesses first and institutions of learning second.
Now they are all frantically trying to remodel their business in light of the new reality.
The chickens have come to roost for UK universities and many will be forced to shut.
That’s a good thing because many are useless and don’t deserve to exist.
The ones that survive will most likely excel in teaching which is what they were always originally founded to do.
Will we see some sort of 1992 reversal? All those institutions that were polys and the like becoming ‘new universities’ dropping it and going back to providing decent practical education without the degree pricetag and associated costs?
Womp womp womp, maybe people don’t want to get in debt for a worthless degree
It’s not just the university that will suffer from a lack of international students. I live in Sheffield and went to University here and whether you like it or not, the city centre needs students particularly international ones as it’s organically grown to accommodate them.
Without them a lot of businesses and accommodation would likely be completely vacant within a year or two. The city centre would also be primarily comprised of smackheads, homeless and Jesus preachers without students.
There’s going to be a massive consolidation of the universities in this country before long. The current model is frankly not sustainable however you look at it. Government can’t afford a tuition fee increase, domestic students can’t pay more and foreign students aren’t going to keep coming for a university experience that’s frankly been commercialised and cheapened by universities that prioritised growth over sustainability, and university is being seen more and more by young people as less of a necessity for working life.
Surely it’s unsurprising to them that people don’t want to go to university for £9k per year in this country, so the only way to get students, is to rely on rich international students.
Something needs to change and it’s in the commercial model universities have for making money. If you overcharge customers they won’t buy.
Knowledge transfer research, business partnerships, investment for equitable deals, investment in chargeable facilities, IP ownership, licensing. These are all potentially commercially attractive.
27 comments
Perhaps building a business model on enticing Chinese students to come and study at your university was a bad idea.
If that were to ever dry up (like it is now), then you’re going to sink pretty quickly. We have too many universities in the UK and too many that are trying to ride the international student wave.
Invest more in technical colleges and practical-type schools.
Its worse then just the uni. Sheffield is such a student city that this will have a knock on effect to a lot of local businesses
Ah yes, I see everything is going according to the plan. You’re killing the academic and scientific community in the UK, but hey, the masses are super happy as this satisfies their xenophobic passions.
We’re going to see this with a lot of unis unfortunately. I trained at Teesside and am originally from the area. My father did 2 degrees there back when it was a polytechnic transitioning to university in the early 90s. It has a special place in my heart.
Without the university the local economy would absolutely tank. The Middlesbrough economy (as well as the surrounding areas) is already hanging on by it’s fingernails as it is. If the university goes under it will be catastrophic for the area.
We either need to have an agreement that universities get financial support, or they get nothing but universities cannot be favoured based on status. If Teesside, Sheffield, Northumbria or other smaller universities are left to struggle we should expect it of all of them. I just don’t want to see universities die, but some (Oxford springs to mind) getting grants to survive just because they’re special and old.
All of this is due to Tony Blair… One of his many legacies which we are paying the price for.
I went from teaching 50 UK/EU students on a module one year to teaching 150 predominantly Chinese students the next year. I moved jobs, just saying that to be clear that I am no longer affiliated and haven’t been for some time.
I am still in touch with several prominent researchers in my field, including some very senior Chinese professors in our field. One of those is in charge of international relations for a Chinese top ten (and now global top 100) university. He gets begged, quite literally, by UK Universities for meetings, to discuss sending Chinese students to the UK.
It’s dried up for two reasons: The constant anti-China rhetoric in anglophile countries is having a huge detrimental effect, racism against the Chinese is getting worse and the Chinese know this. They used to look up to countries like the UK, Australia and the US, but that is changing.
The other, more significant reason is that China’s academia has reached a point where it outcompetes the UK, with ease. Better funding, more capacity, better facilities… But most of all, many really well educated Chinese professors that are returning to China on ever increasing remuneration deals (wags plus research budget) who offer better quality education back home.
Sheffield really put all its eggs in the ‘attract Chinese students!’ basket and it is going to backfire spectacularly. I do wish my alma mater all the luck and good will in the world, but it’s time to rethink priorities.
Ultimately trying to design our universities to be profit generating entities was a stupid thing to do, since their goal isn’t to generate profit, it’s to educate people. If you try to reshape them in a way that makes them profitable, it’s going to come at the expense of their actual goal.
We need to stop setting up public services like businesses and then being surprised when they aren’t as profitable as businesses.
Not surprising given some of the [highly offensive and out of touch comments](https://thepipeline.info/blog/2021/07/09/university-management-accused-of-gaslighting-archaeology-students-as-ethics-watchdog-blocks-complaint/) the vice chancellor makes.
Then there’s the fact that the [governance of the uni of Sheffield has been corrupt and spending money on the likes of limos and hotel stays for years](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7525839/amp/Sheffield-college-chief-claimed-9-000-chauffeur-driven-car.html)
All while people have been battling for [staff](https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/13181/Ten-days-of-strikes-set-to-hit-the-University-of-Sheffield-over-pay-docking-row) to be [paid fairly](https://www.thestar.co.uk/education/what-university-cleaners-in-sheffield-discovered-today-3424663)
So, there are so-called educational consultants who have Instagram accounts where they make ‘ educational reels’ about studying in the UK. These are international students themselves and have some kind of agreement with the university in helping to recruit international students who pay so much fees (making their parents take loans). Once the students come here to do some random degree, they cant then get sponsored jobs and if they do get it, they have to pay once again lot of fee to bring dependants (once they are married – upto 10k). And they dont even have visa safety as they can be laid off anytime. My only question if these so called ‘student recruiters ‘ get any commission.
Oh well.
Isn’t capatalism great until it fucks you?
50 unis created since 2017. Unsustainable. No wonder subsidies HE is so unpalatable.
Perhaps the Senate members should take a pay cut to reflect changing reality
I mean who’s going to come and study in an ok uni for £20k annualy plus cost of living? I have a cousin from Greece who really wanted to come to Sheffield. He had really great grades and everything but simply didn’t have the money. He didn’t even bother with the application. He went to the Netherlands instead.
If tuition fees go up or cuts are made to vital services, it could really affect the quality of higher education. And there are may other unis facing similar struggles!
If tuition fees were funded by the government, many problems would go away. A limited number of students would be a good thing, and would eliminate the incentive for universities to rely on international student money
I’m so glad my British child has another European passport. My hope for him is one of the best universities in Europe, ETH. 900GBP per term…although the cost of living will be a challenge.
Strange how they once survived without tuition fees.
I just think we should get rid of some of these useless degrees that people don’t get a job in and are just a quick cash grab
Is there a good breakdown anywhere of expenses vs costs?
I’m probably missing something but it seems the amount per student these universities get from domestic student should be enough to cover teaching most 3 year degrees?
I never felt I got value for money back when I was paying around 3k a year even without considering the extra the government was giving them
I can’t tell if it’s all going on chancellors salaries and research or running costs are just higher than I think
The Tory government, leading up to election, prohibited non-research students to bring their families, raised the wage level for work sponsorship, and made a hell of a lot of noise reviewing the post-graduate visa. these immigration changes were probably intended to target Asian and African students, but all international students were equally affected.
The international students merely reacted to the signals.
Time for many universities to die and for the surviving ones to go back on their core mission: education
ALL UK universities are in tens of millions of pounds of debt.
They became too addicted to the foreign student money crack and became businesses first and institutions of learning second.
Now they are all frantically trying to remodel their business in light of the new reality.
The chickens have come to roost for UK universities and many will be forced to shut.
That’s a good thing because many are useless and don’t deserve to exist.
The ones that survive will most likely excel in teaching which is what they were always originally founded to do.
Will we see some sort of 1992 reversal? All those institutions that were polys and the like becoming ‘new universities’ dropping it and going back to providing decent practical education without the degree pricetag and associated costs?
Womp womp womp, maybe people don’t want to get in debt for a worthless degree
It’s not just the university that will suffer from a lack of international students. I live in Sheffield and went to University here and whether you like it or not, the city centre needs students particularly international ones as it’s organically grown to accommodate them.
Without them a lot of businesses and accommodation would likely be completely vacant within a year or two. The city centre would also be primarily comprised of smackheads, homeless and Jesus preachers without students.
There’s going to be a massive consolidation of the universities in this country before long. The current model is frankly not sustainable however you look at it. Government can’t afford a tuition fee increase, domestic students can’t pay more and foreign students aren’t going to keep coming for a university experience that’s frankly been commercialised and cheapened by universities that prioritised growth over sustainability, and university is being seen more and more by young people as less of a necessity for working life.
Surely it’s unsurprising to them that people don’t want to go to university for £9k per year in this country, so the only way to get students, is to rely on rich international students.
Something needs to change and it’s in the commercial model universities have for making money. If you overcharge customers they won’t buy.
Knowledge transfer research, business partnerships, investment for equitable deals, investment in chargeable facilities, IP ownership, licensing. These are all potentially commercially attractive.