University funding/finances

Lack of detail, not due process, is at the heart of concerns about medical research handouts in Australia, writes John Ross 

Trudeau’s spending splurge seen as an attempt to curry favour with voters ahead of federal election

Stephen Toope cites Brexit and Augar review in all-university email explaining the need to reduce spending

Cash flows are not moving fast enough to keep pace with technology, malaria expert cautions

Ministers love talking about grand government-directed projects, but Philip Hammond must reaffirm tomorrow the UK’s support for open-ended research using quality-related funding, says Stephanie Smith

Staff hit out at ‘financial mismanagement’ as university announces plans to cut roughly a third of modern languages jobs

Ministers are right to question student recruitment practices in some universities, but restricting loan access to those who fail to hit three Ds at A level would be a retrograde step, says Tom Richmond

Hepi survey finds student opinion is in direct opposition to government and regulator policy

Treasury officials will find it harder to ignore the deficit pressures caused by subsidising lower-earning creative arts students after analysis, researcher argues

Report on financial sustainability of UK universities suggests that any attempt to lower fees could have big impact on some institutions

ARC insists allegations of political subversion are ‘baseless’

Negotiations on €100 billion Horizon Europe scheme delayed by East-West tensions and could be slowed further by European elections

Carolyn Fairbarn will urge ministers not to cause ‘needless’ damage to the ‘precious national asset’ of universities

Continued funding squeeze appears inevitable as major parties’ policies trickle out at UA conference

Strides have been taken since the destruction wrought by the US-led invasion, but funding and standards remain unacceptably low, says Mohamed Al-Rubeai

The difficulties even of obtaining a scholarship to study in the West amount to systemic exclusion, says Rudrani Dasgupta

Labor has made an ‘unequivocal commitment’ to restore uncapped funding, vice-chancellors say

One thousand PhD places to be created over next five years

Institutions that win performance-related funding will fall behind anyway, university group claims

New president pursues pet project while existing institutions struggle to make ends meet

Cardiff’s Colin Riordan says research-intensive universities will have to ‘adjust’ to straitened times

Institutions struggle to cope with changing student tastes, demographic shifts and the difficulty of scaling up their model

Welsh university says it is not currently planning compulsory redundancies but cannot rule them out in future

Sir Chris Husbands visits Australia as it considers introducing performance-related funding system similar to UK’s teaching excellence framework

Larry Bacow calls campuses ‘far more adaptable and durable’ than sceptics claim

The rise of electronic publishing has left many academic librarians underemployed and overpaid, says Jeffrey Beall

But flagging Chinese applications could dampen future growth

Sussex vice-chancellor predicts ‘variable’ approach to regulatory support for vulnerable institutions

Rising default rates on education loans could signal trouble ahead, says Pushkar

Tim Bradshaw says capping fees in England at £6,500 would cost member institutions £860 million annually

Welsh university disputes figures in accountant’s report

While students protest hit on affordability, colleges shrug and grow foreign enrolment

Falling student enrolments and restructuring costs blamed for operating deficits at many universities in the UK capital

Researcher finds that impressive enrolment numbers conceal the tiny profit margins earned by UK universities operating abroad

After enduring tumultuous college closures, Massachusetts mulls forcing private institutions to prove their ongoing viability

Pledges of huge investments in higher education to secure the tech giant’s second headquarters could strain academic autonomy, says Michelle Dimino

England’s loan system and high fees have fuelled students’ sense of entitlement but not of responsibility, says Beth Guilding 

Bennett College seen as exemplifying challenges faced by small, private, minority-serving and women-only institutions

Lowering of student loan repayment threshold to recoup an extra A$20 million (£11.3 million) but cost A$19 million

Changes to the way the UK accounts for the cost of student loans should trigger a rethink about the sources of university funding, says Ryan Shorthouse

Positions are being redistributed to Italy’s richer regions, academic group warns, exacerbating long-standing inequalities

Dollars, not diktats, now seen as biggest risk to institutional autonomy in special administrative region

London university will shut down site as part of new institutional strategy 

Australian government is underestimating the challenge, analysts say

Cash flows increasingly from south and east Asia to south-eastern cities

With one more year to go until the end of a decade that is transforming universities worldwide, Times Higher Education looks at the trends that have shaped the past 12 months

Even if tuition-free or ‘debt-free’ higher education cannot be achieved at national level, local reforms are having a big impact

Expert panel given six months to design new system

IFS researcher says ONS decision will make Labour fees pledge ‘a lot less expensive’ and bring more ‘Treasury scrutiny’ of sector

The University of Buckingham will open a new health science campus on Cheshire site

PhD scholarships in the sights as cutbacks more than double analysts’ expectations

Call for England’s Augar review to take action over fate of part-time education, as Birkbeck starts losing money too

Impending ONS student loans review to impact on chancellor’s deficit elimination goal and government’s post-18 education review

University hit by declining student numbers returns multimillion-pound deficit for third year in row

Sector surpluses dip below 5 per cent ‘buffer zone’ threshold

Managers’ first reaction is usually to ‘look at the bottom line’, but ‘they’re just usually not as crass and as crude as this’

A Times Higher Education/Wall Street Journal analysis suggests that while the two-year MBA remains extremely strong, shorter alternatives are also becoming highly valued in a time-pressed world. Anna McKie reports

Overseas programmes are rarely money-spinners, but as power shifts east they will be crucial for Western universities’ continued relevance, says Matt Durnin

Both the rationale and the mechanism for redistributing research activity around the regions are far from clear cut, say Sarah Chaytor and Graeme Reid   

Sector leaders fear consultation could be cover for cutbacks