UK HE News
@HigherEd_UK
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Watching the slow-motion suicide of UK universities evolve into its next phase: fast-motion suicide. https://t.co/FnUWCUrHxv going forward.
United Kingdom
Joined June 2023
For those interested in this account, follow https://t.co/kLSNpBnDN9
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Sometimes satire just tells it straight.
The key to being a successful administrator is to know which horse to ride… and then when to jump off that horse and on to another one.
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Everyone who supported this system played some part in killing UK HE—with ripple effects through the economy. Everyone lost except the senior managers who exploited fees to claim unis were businesses and thus needed 'global talent' salaries.
The student loan scandal - interest on loans is more than the repayments for many on Plan 2 so debt grows trapping them with extra 9% income tax for up to 30 years https://t.co/1kw8ZC6Efi £15.2 billion interest added to student loans last year, only £5 billion repaid.
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No manager actually believed this strategy had a future. We are more than a decade into selling out university value for the sake of managerial careers fuelled by pseudo-corporate distortions of universities.
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What students want is the signalling value from degrees. That comes by building an institutional reputation. No one is doing anything about that. Instead, universities continue to pretend they are trading in 'teaching quality.'
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UK HE has become a massive grift that numerous administrators (and the boards that regulate them) have gotten in on! Overpaying cronies is a key means of consolidating power and minimizing accountability.
What's Gone Wrong at Cambridge University? While real-terms pay for the average employee has slowly eroded year after year, Cambridge has found the funds to expand both the ranks & rewards of its £100k-plus earners The Vice Chancellor heads the six-figure earners at > £500k
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Voice of Victim "We were sold a lie - HR was a kindly institutional conscience When the mask finally slipped, the truth was spat out with contempt You're collateral. You always were Our lab learnt this lesson. It was enforced — suddenly, violently & without appeal"
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I bet all UK universities have something quite similar. We are deep in the cost allocation death spiral now.
What's gone wrong at Cambridge University? Flat departmental budgets (inflation-adjusted) from 2016–2025 Explosive growth in central administration spending The result is a university increasingly run around teaching and research rather than for them
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I pointed out this excellent blog in response to @grok. It should be required reading for all VC and SMTs. It is not only "Leaders (who should) demand accountability and transparency". The staff should have it too, but they are continuously gaslit. @UniversitiesUK @HigherEd_UK
New Post: WEEKEND READING: What if, in trying to ‘fix’ universities, we are quietly unmaking them? https://t.co/8FcbleoEp1
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Students mistreated by their University should contact their MPs There is backbench debate on statutory duty of care on 13 January 2026 Leave MPs in no doubt as to the failure of universities to safeguard staff & students @Dying4aDegree @ForThe100_
https://t.co/mJUD01RW5s
committees.parliament.uk
On Tuesday 13 January in Westminster Hall, MPs will hold a debate on potential merits of a statutory duty of care for universities.
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The death spiral is well underway. When the dust settles from 2025 cuts intended to 'break even' for one year, it will be obvious that the degree value -- and thus recruitment -- has suffered. The perception that university is not 'worth it' will be reinforced.
2025 was a year of vandalism across UK universities In 2026, the wreckage will be set on fire: more strikes, more cuts, more closures Meanwhile, vice-chancellors & senior managers will fail upwards, stuffing their pockets while the sector burns Cheered on by @UniversitiesUK
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If you are doing something now for the 'REF 2029' because your senior management told you you would be rewarded for this (or, not punished as severely as others), you really should not bother.
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Everyone pays, except the VC..... 😁
Here’s how the university works: students are paid to play athletics. Faculty pay to have their work published. This is why we need faculty to get grants. And also, we can’t buy subscriptions for the article you paid to publish. Sorry!
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And seized all their REF returnable research outputs...
BREAKING: The Security Team from Bantshire have boarded and seized a minibus from Kent University.
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Right now, your senior management is withholding information about financial conditions and restructuring plans—to delay panic and despair just a little longer, while they get their own career plans in order.
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Harsh but true?
Let’s be real: Academia is dead. The peer review system has devolved into a zero-sum game of gatekeeping. We have PhD students—who are literal competitors—judging each other's survival. It’s not "scientific exchange" anymore; it’s a reward system for those who game the broken
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Universities often do this to put the victim off pursuit of a claim. It's a shameful tactic employed right across the sector
Oh @QMUL couldn't see the injustice here (despite the grievances, the numerous panels, HR involvement, long emails and debates)... So well-done to the female claimant who pursued their case to employment tribunal and won! 🙌 This a must-read ⬇️ https://t.co/xTdVaSqQ37
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Students have probably woken up to the fact that when a university is talking endlessly about 'employability,' it's because they can't offer them an institutional *reputation* that actually will help distinguish them in the job market.
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The answer is that HE is of such little interest to both elites and the public that it isn't even worth exposing. Journalists and politicians see no reason to bother. Thanks UUK!
How do corrupt and incompetent university managers keep escaping consequences in the UK?
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