Super-universities: the answer to higher education’s financial woes?

The universities of Kent and Greenwich are to merge into a “super-university” that leaders hope will provide a model for other institutions in the beleaguered higher education sector to follow.

The new London and South East University Group will become one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK, with its combined total of almost 50,000 students putting it on a par with the University of Manchester. The two institutions will award separate degrees but combine their backroom services and share a single vice-chancellor. Legally, they will be one entity but two separate “brands”.

While there have been other higher education mergers in recent years, “the size and scale, along with the much-anticipated deployment of a multi-university model for the first time, mark this news as something of a watershed moment for the English sector”, said higher education news website Wonkhe.

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Why is this needed?

Britain's higher education sector is facing a financial time bomb. A combination of frozen tuition fees, rising costs and falling international student admissions means more than two-fifths of universities are forecast to be in deficit for the academic year 2024/25, according to the Office for Students.

There are fundamental problems with the funding model universities have adopted over the past 25 years, said The Guardian in an editorial, “among them the questionable ethics of students from poorer countries subsidising the education of young Britons”.

“Brexit, international competition and regulations designed to cut immigration (by preventing students from bringing family members), have all harmed UK universities’ ability to attract students.”

It is time to change the “one-size-fits-all operating model”, with “more collaboration, segmentation and differentiation between institutions”, said Philip Augar in the Financial Times. “A commitment to life-long learning would restore a slump in adult education. Governance should be sharper.”

Will mergers work?

“Mergers have increasingly been posed as one potential solution to the precarious financial situation British universities find themselves in,” said Times Higher Education. A recent report commissioned by Universities UK, which represents university leaders, recommended more institutions formally collaborate or share services to ensure their survival.

The model is similar to multi-academy trust structures in schools and “is by no means limited to only two universities operating under one umbrella”, said Wonkhe. “Conversations behind the scenes over the last couple of years” have explored the idea of “groups spanning multiple universities and it’s not hard to see how others in the region might want to – or somehow be compelled to – join this group once it’s up and running”.

While the Department for Education said ministers “welcome innovative approaches” such as the one announced this week, others question the real motives and the impact formal tie-ups will have. UCU General Secretary Jo Grady told the BBC that what is being described as a merger is really “a takeover by Greenwich” as Kent was on “the brink of insolvency”.

“Both of these institutions should have been on the government’s radar, and rather than stepping in, we’re seeing that this is how a crisis is managed,” she said. “This isn’t offering stability to students, to staff or to the sector.”