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The Guardian view on universities: a bailout is in all
our interests
There is no reason why Britain’s universities should suffer permanent damage as
a result of coronavirus. But, like many other institutions, they will need
support in order to avoid it. The immediate issue is the present. The deaths
from Covid-19 of people such as Ade Raymond, who was studying for a nursing
degree at Middlesex university, will leave big gaps.
On top of such personal losses comes the virus’s wider impact. While lectures
and teaching continue online, the removal of access to libraries and
laboratories, and, above all, to people, takes a toll – particularly on students
in their final year, or on one-year courses. Following February’s strikes, some
will feel they have lost half a year of their higher education. Those reliant on
income from casual work (often in retail or catering), or tied into rental
agreements for shared houses, risk increased debts and other hardships.
Academics are struggling, like other workers, with the challenge of combining
day jobs with caring responsibilities. Conferences are cancelled. A huge number
of lecturers and other staff on temporary contracts were already insecure before
the virus hit, and in some cases shockingly poorly paid. Now the prospect of
further cuts and outsourcing looms.
The easing of the lockdown, whenever it comes, should lessen the sense of
disaster and enable the social side of academic life to resume. But the autumn
is expected to bring fresh difficulties, with between 20% and 80% of
international students, whose fees the sector relies on (about £3bn in England),
expected to stay away. Some fear British students too could opt out on the
grounds that physical distancing measures will disrupt learning. In Scotland the
threat is even more acute, since without tuition fees universities are even more
reliant on international income.
So far the Treasury appears resistant to the sector’s call for a £2bn bailout,
although this is supported by other Whitehall departments. Given the scale of
the unfolding economic disaster this is perhaps not surprising. But it would be
folly for politicians to ignore the proposed rescue package, which includes a
cap on numbers designed to protect the weaker institutions and disciplines that
are most likely to suffer. The UK was the second most popular destination in the
world for international students, behind the US, until recently being overtaken
by Australia. Boris Johnson’s reintroduction of the post-study work visas
removed by Theresa May sent a strong, positive signal.
The aggressive and ideological marketisation of the English university system
has destroyed much that was of value. Soaring pay for managers combined with
casualisation of academic staff is a symptom of a deeper malaise. The
combination of tuition fees with decades of housing market failure has placed an
impossible and unjust burden on the young. There is a risk that Brexit could be
harmful to a sector that must be outward-facing, as well as taking seriously its
local obligations, if it is to succeed.
But right now, the priority must be to support universities through the crisis, and enable these hubs of science, culture and ideas – which are also major employers – to play their part in the national recovery. Four of Europe’s 30 universities disappeared in the wake of the Black Death. To allow the UK university sector to shrink following Covid-19 would only perpetuate the unimaginative short-termism that has so depleted the public sector over the past decade. As policymakers struggle to contain a disaster they failed to prepare for, it should be obvious how much we need our centres of learning.