Higher-education institutions are a public good, but universities can’t just fold: A response to a letter to Hull University students about the need for chemistry in 2025-2025

The dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Hull wrote a letter to undergraduate chemistry students in August, saying they might not be offered chemistry courses from the academic year of 2025 to 26. Further letters from David Petley, Hull’s vice-chancellor, say the university needs to save £23 million over two years across its departments. Nature understands that one option under consideration is to stop all chemistry courses at the end of July 2025 entirely and offer to transfer students, “perhaps with compensation”.

In July, the Office for Students — which regulates higher education in England — tendered a contract for financial-management consultancy firms to take over universities that become insolvent. The document specifies that at-risk higher-education providers should be evaluated to “ensure that the interests of students are safeguarded throughout any financial adjustments or transition, including potential market exits”. The education secretary said in a recent interview that universities were a public good and she would attempt to protect them if they were faced with insolvency.

Labour fails an important test. Universities organize much of the nation’s research, which is subject to different financial arrangements from teaching. In 2021, UK taxpayers contributed £12.8 billion (US$17 billion) in funding to researchers, mostly at universities. The subsidy comes from an understanding that innovation and technologies from universities push society forward and boost economic growth. A report commissioned by Universities UK, the London-based umbrella body for UK universities, found that every £1 of public investment generates £14 of economic benefit (see go.nature.com/3xztcrf). It makes little sense to treat academic research as a public investment, but higher education as a private-sector industry. If universities can’t educate those who will be the scientists of the future, their research output is going to be severely diminished.

“There’s quite a lot of policies that have really converged right now, and as a trade union, we have significant concerns about the impact that that’s had on academic staff,” says Suliman.

It is unlikely that the government would allow an institute to go under. “My view is whatever politicians might have said in the recent past, you can’t really let a large multi-faculty university just fold, because they’re too important to the local region,” he says.

Many feel that universities should not be run as competitive businesses at all. “To me, it just kind of comes down to ‘What is a university?’,” says Wheeler. Do we only offer courses of study that are profitable, or do subjects that benefit society as a whole should be subsidized at least in the short term?

Academics are less supportive of senior leadership at their institutions in handling the economic circumstances. “For a long time, I have been generally unhappy with the university management,” says evolutionary anthropologist Brandon Wheeler, who was made redundant by the University of Kent in Canterbury last month.

The chemistry department at the University of the UK was due to close in June but staff were warned about it. The institution said that the yearly charge for students was too small to cover the cost of running the section. The consultation process over the closure is likely to end in the second week of October.

Student numbers dwindled, and Thomas listed advantages. She says that the degree was close knit and that it meant you got the best out of it. “I speak to people who had 300-plus people in their degree. Trying to get the lecturer to listen didn’t work. You had a close-knit group which helped you a lot.

A University of Kent spokesperson says: “Like many in the sector, we face a number of financial challenges, including the fixed tuition fee, high inflation and changes in student behaviour. Although we have put into action plans to address this, our budget forecast has improved since initial cautious projections earlier in the year. The university is already phasing out some courses on the basis of expected student demand, but will continue to offer a mix of subjects across science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines, the spokesperson adds.

Wheeler, who is now at the University of Roehampton, London, says that Kent has wavered for years between cutting the anthropology programme entirely and letting it continue. There has been a lack of confidence in university management from both academic and professional service staff at Kent.

This week, when students brush their teeth, pack their bags and walk down Cottingham Road to reach the University of Hull’s chemistry building, it will be with more than the usual sense of trepidation that often accompanies the first day of lectures.

A second year PhD student in the department, Longbottom says she was excited to get a plan together for her project. It is all uncertain.

Because of a heady mix of economic circumstances, 70 of the nearly 290 higher-education providers in the United Kingdom have announced proposed restructures or redundancies, according to data collected by the University and College Union, which represents academic staff.

The Higher Education Policy Institute in Oxford, UK, says that someone once said that building a university is the way to have a great city. “Hull is a much better place because it’s got a university than it would be if it hadn’t. In terms of providing local businesses with workers, regeneration, and bringing in income into the town.

Some 108 degree-awarding institutions in England are expected to be in deficit by the end of this year, according to the Office for Students, the English universities regulator. Many of those working in higher education say that soon — very soon — one of these universities will become insolvent. In many cases, the cost of educating a UK undergraduate student is more than the amount the student pays the university.

Inflationary pressures on UK universities on the brink as higher-education funding crisis deepens: A survey by Tam et al

Inflationary pressures took their toll. “We saw years of many at the beginning and then years of drift after that,” he says. “And once inflation hit 10% [in July 2022] then it was more than a drift: it was a really significant cut.”

A cap on student numbers was removed in 2014, further squeezing some middle-sized universities. institutions can accept more students than they like.

This has caused “the middle part of the sector to really suffer”, says Tam, “because some top institutions have a massive draw to students”, particularly those in London and other large metropolitan areas. The number of first-year students in universities in less attractive destinations decreased. Nature reports that the number of first-year students in Hull’s chemistry program has fallen from more than 160 to less than 20 over the course of the next five years.

Some UK universities planned to address a fall in European students after Brexit by attracting researchers from low- and middle-income countries, such as India and Nigeria. The number of Nigerian students tripled, while the number of Indian students increased fivefold.

But students from those countries were more likely to bring dependants with them and, after a rapid rise in immigration figures, a law change in January now prevents them from doing so. Between July and June of this year, the number of visas granted to Indians decreased by 23% and the number of visas granted to Nigerian students decreased by half.

Source: UK university departments on the brink as higher-education funding crisis deepens

The University of Essex: Protecting the staff from a £14 million shortfall in income — a league of its own: Europe does not have to be that way

The University of Essex in Colchester warned its staff in March about the risk of a £14 million shortfall in income. Tom Cameron, a professor of applied ecology there, lists the protective measures the institution has brought in. “We put a halt to promotions, we put a halt to bonus payments. We halted a lot of external recruitment for certain positions. All of these things may be frustrating, but, collectively, it means that you and your colleagues have jobs. He says that he sees that very positively.

In March, Kent announced an expected operating-budget shortfall of £31 million, following a £12 million loss in 2023, and said it had rescheduled its debt repayments, with the next repayment arranged for March 2026.

Other countries show that it doesn’t have to be this way (see ‘A league of its own’). The European governments spend billions of dollars on higher education and research. Students pay a small charge, or a heavily subsidized tuition fee, to cover the costs of a degree. Government scholarships are also available in many countries. China, which has the world’s largest higher-education sector, with more than half of its secondary-school graduates enrolling in tertiary education, operates on a similar model. In the US, public universities get funding from state governments as well as charging tuition.