I wonder why UK HE had such limited 'winnings'?

HE contractors are corrupt across the board, just like HE senior managers. Their 'shadow economy' is rapidly falling apart but they all are walking away with vast amounts of Ill-gotten wealth and zero consequences.

What's the problem? The earnings report is in, and some units did not meet their targets. Isn't a university just a business like any other? Because, if not, UUK should be dissolved and all senior management should resign, since their existence and power are based on that principle.

Management/UUK rely on the notion that universities have cartel power to sell degrees, but this is at best a procedural advantage, based on how valuable the idea of a degree is. The collective action required for a cartel to maintain the perceived value of the commodity has not occurred.

The argument that universities exist to conduct basic research (i.e. the only thing for which they have a substantive comparative advantage) and that student benefits flow from that must start at zero, with the government and media, along with even most management, confused by the very concept.

Would UK HE be better able to defend itself against charges of irrelevance if its senior management hadn't spent the last decade pushing the narrative that a university is nothing more than an overpriced skills training facility with some modest probability of an income premium?

The senior management that brought the sector to its knees are not equipped to save it, only to wind it down.

Maybe this is why universities are not supposed to be degree sales 'businesses'?

In an alternate universe where the UK cared about research, UKHE could have been taking advantage of this.

Yep

Yes and specifically selecting corrupt, narcissistic, sociopaths for these roles may have had some downsides. Live and learn!

VCs' behaviour is entirely rational, although distorted by incompetence and often sadistic personalities. They are, of course, paid to destroy universities and to lie constantly. But if they were paid to do the opposite, the specific individuals in question would not have ever made it to VC.

Although senior managers don't care about research, this does not mean that they care about teaching instead.

Most UK HE VCs simply do not care about research, full stop. Some care about the REF and/or other metrics, but they believe academics are easily replaceable in terms of their role in gaming those metrics.

Yeah... If your university beleives it will rebuild via restoring international student recruitment, it should think again. In a few years, the attractiveness of the UK will be far worse than it is now.

The management-led decline of UK HE needs a full documentary treatment, but in the meantime a re-subtitled Downfall will capture the gist of the managerial dynamics at work.

Naturally, the Government looks at UK HE and thinks there's still too much academic credibility remaining. No, that just won't do.

The person behind this was immediately recruited by Cardiff University as 'global talent'. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

This is UK HE. This is the Russell Group. This is UUK. This is the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, uni senior management deserves 'market pay' to attract 'global talent' based on a fantasy about them competing with CEOs of actual businesses, rather than simply winning the lottery with a position where you are rewarded for failure.

Even where uni senior management feel that academic staff are a kind of 'necessary evil' for some aspect of their agenda, none see any _particular_ academic staff as essential to that agenda.

The OfS enforcing the 'consumer model' of HE, coupled with the total freedom of management to pay itself to gut universities and turn them into degree factories, could not have had any other outcome than what we see today.

The Government's incentive system essentially encourages doubling down on the sector's reputational decline, just now via perverse forms of shrinking rather than growing.

The utter evil of university management saying, straight faced, without irony, to academic departments that it is *they* who have failed the university... ... as if they'd had any influence in the uni, and its failed strategies over the last 10 years.

Everything about the death of UK universities is intentional. There are no surprises, except perhaps the willingness of Vice Chancellors and their cronies to accelerate in the decline whilst enriching themselves.

Breaking news! www.timeshighereducation.com/news/merging...

Um... virtually all universities already fell into those traps.

Most UK HE VCs simply do not care about research, full stop. Some care about the REF and/or other metrics, but they believe academics are easily replaceable in terms of their role in gaming those metrics.

The truth is she doesn't. She expects the sector to shrink to several 'proper' universities and dozens of 'skills training institutes' of some sort. And this is the least hostile position on universities among major British politicians.

The truth is she doesn't. She expects the sector to shrink to several 'proper' universities and dozens of 'skills training institutes' of some sort. And this is the least hostile position on universities among major British politicians.

The problem, at least in UK HE, is that management was already far along in abandoning the substantive purpose of universities. AI is just a more efficient way for them to get there.

Wait... so you're saying that defunding the sector won't lead to 'excellence'?

To put it another way, the sector collapse was caused by corrupt and incompetent Vice Chancellors (and cronies) who are not only facing zero accountability, but we are still not even saying this openly.

A student body armed with a 'generate essay' button is a university manager's dream.

This should be called the 'final nail in the UK HE coffin' plan. It takes the worst aspects of UK HE today, deepens them and makes them irreversible.

This is exactly what has happened. HE has been dumbed down to (in zombie voice) "university for jobs, business = jobs". And of course the universities are happy to reinforce this with their marketing.

Meanwhile, UUK is betting on the government letting them increase the number of international students.

UUK is central to the sector's decline because they ensure there is a critical mass of corruption and incompetence driving the uni leadership template.

There was a push, and project is complete.

And this is now the prevailing 'logic' in HE discourse, from politicians, to media, to uni managers.

The cabal of senior managers turned universities into pure degree sales machines. That meant generating a narrative on universities exclusively to a concept marketable to children. The result of promoting this simplistic "teaching" brand has been to undermine their own credential cartel.

Yes, shocking as it sounds. information transmission was already well established before universities existed.

Bingo

This is view is now pervasive because this this has also been the position of uni senior management for years. The only difference is they think that universities will still somehow supply the information even when academics are removed from the process.

UK HE senior management has been destroying degree value to increase income (and thus increase their salaries.) This looked initially successful because of oligopoly power over awarding degrees (they pretend this is a 'business') But, without degree value, that model is rapidly collapsing.

Everything about the destruction of UK HE is a choice. .. A choice made by senior management.

Russell Group needs to understand that the UK does not care about research. What else you got?

Uni managers confidence that they can run the university with drastic reductions in permanent staff is at an historic high. Meanwhile, the public sentiment towards universities is at an historic low.

It's fitting for UCEA to appoint an infamously corrupt and incompetent VC as its leader. It also confirms, if there was any doubt, that UCEA remains a bad faith actor happy to watch the sector burn.

Now we only must find a way to do this *before* irreparable damage is done to the uni!