The University of Edinburgh’s staff have been on strike once again. Welcome Week saw a five-day walk-out over budget cuts totalling £140 million. The university claims that cuts are imperative to avoid a deficit, while the University and College Union (UCU) maintain that the university can “afford to rule out compulsory redundancies” and that management is creating a financial crisis to justify inducing cuts.
As the UCU outlines, the university’s case is shallow. From 2022 to 2024, the University of Edinburgh’s income rose by £136 million, while staff costs as a proportion of expenditure decreased. Meanwhile, capital expenditure increased by 20 per cent. It seems that the university has been reckless in spending and relied on hurting teaching to compensate, motivated by, as the UCU claim, the fact that management feel that “buildings are ‘assets’ while staff are ‘costs’.”
Damaging cuts undertaken at the same time as investment projects, and interminable industrial action from a disgruntled workforce. It’s far from ideal. But it’s also emblematic of a great offence in the university sector, with higher education’s evolution into a market rather than a service.
The British university system received growing marketisation in the 1980s and 1990s during the advent of the West’s neoliberal fancy. The Thatcher government sought to encourage competition among universities for state funding, while Tony Blair’s government saw the introduction of tuition fees in the UK. The abolition of tuition fees in Scotland served to ameliorate, but not solve, this problem. A recalibration of universities was spurred. They were no longer simply centres of study and research; they were businesses fishing in a market of potential students, now evolved into consumers.
Chloe Field writes that the introduction of tuition fees has led to universities competing for prospective students, with the money that their tuition entails, rather than engaging with current ones, whose money is already secured.
We see this in Edinburgh. £120 million has been spent on the university’s real estate according to the UCU, who claim that “Senior Management like the photo opportunities and architectural awards for projects like the Edinburgh Futures Institute.” This is a billboard to those thinking of studying at Edinburgh: look at all these new buildings! So much opportunity! An imminently renovated Teviot Row House must be a great consolation to new students once they arrive and discover that their cohort lead is on strike. I wouldn’t know; I’ve never been inside. It’s been off limits since I got here.
What’s more, the student mindset has been changed by the introduction of tuition and maintenance loans. A degree is now seen as, primarily, a line on a CV. The introduction of debt into the university experience has left students with the implicit understanding that their studies are meant to leave them with a financial asset. After all, your mortgage, when paid off, leaves you with a house you can sell. Car finance does the same. Why shouldn’t I think of my student debt in the same way? A university education is now, in the minds of many, an exercise in attracting future employers.
It’s little wonder student engagement is as it is. Sure, every half-empty room on campus is due at least in part to the fact that this lecture is at 9am, or you’re too hungover to make that tutorial. But I suspect there is also a sense of already having what you’ve paid for: the promise of a degree in four years’ time. Likewise, the YouTuber Man Carrying Thing responded to the viral clip of a UCLA student flaunting his use of ChatGPT by highlighting the death of the idea of “education for education’s sake,” while journalist Aaron Bastani linked grade inflation to the fact that people are now paying for tuition, so may feel entitled to a higher test score. It’s very straight-forward: many students feel that we’re here so that we can get a job when we leave.
Decades after the initial move to marketise the system, universities have morphed from imperfect but productive centres of learning, to businesses catering for dispassionate consumers fixated on cost and recompense. The University of Edinburgh is spending big on projects to bring in new students, while students are footing the bill and staff are taking the brunt. Something big has to change, and fast. I wonder how much it will cost.
Photography by Mark Chan for The Student
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The University of Edinburgh’s staff have been on strike once again. Welcome Week saw a five-day walk-out over budget cuts totalling £140 million. The university claims that cuts are imperative to avoid a deficit, while the University and College Union (UCU) maintain that the university can “afford to rule out compulsory redundancies” and that management is creating a financial crisis to justify inducing cuts.
As the UCU outlines, the university’s case is shallow. From 2022 to 2024, the University of Edinburgh’s income rose by £136 million, while staff costs as a proportion of expenditure decreased. Meanwhile, capital expenditure increased by 20 per cent. It seems that the university has been reckless in spending and relied on hurting teaching to compensate, motivated by, as the UCU claim, the fact that management feel that “buildings are ‘assets’ while staff are ‘costs’.”
Damaging cuts undertaken at the same time as investment projects, and interminable industrial action from a disgruntled workforce. It’s far from ideal. But it’s also emblematic of a great offence in the university sector, with higher education’s evolution into a market rather than a service.
The British university system received growing marketisation in the 1980s and 1990s during the advent of the West’s neoliberal fancy. The Thatcher government sought to encourage competition among universities for state funding, while Tony Blair’s government saw the introduction of tuition fees in the UK. The abolition of tuition fees in Scotland served to ameliorate, but not solve, this problem. A recalibration of universities was spurred. They were no longer simply centres of study and research; they were businesses fishing in a market of potential students, now evolved into consumers.
Chloe Field writes that the introduction of tuition fees has led to universities competing for prospective students, with the money that their tuition entails, rather than engaging with current ones, whose money is already secured.
We see this in Edinburgh. £120 million has been spent on the university’s real estate according to the UCU, who claim that “Senior Management like the photo opportunities and architectural awards for projects like the Edinburgh Futures Institute.” This is a billboard to those thinking of studying at Edinburgh: look at all these new buildings! So much opportunity! An imminently renovated Teviot Row House must be a great consolation to new students once they arrive and discover that their cohort lead is on strike. I wouldn’t know; I’ve never been inside. It’s been off limits since I got here.
What’s more, the student mindset has been changed by the introduction of tuition and maintenance loans. A degree is now seen as, primarily, a line on a CV. The introduction of debt into the university experience has left students with the implicit understanding that their studies are meant to leave them with a financial asset. After all, your mortgage, when paid off, leaves you with a house you can sell. Car finance does the same. Why shouldn’t I think of my student debt in the same way? A university education is now, in the minds of many, an exercise in attracting future employers.
It’s little wonder student engagement is as it is. Sure, every half-empty room on campus is due at least in part to the fact that this lecture is at 9am, or you’re too hungover to make that tutorial. But I suspect there is also a sense of already having what you’ve paid for: the promise of a degree in four years’ time. Likewise, the YouTuber Man Carrying Thing responded to the viral clip of a UCLA student flaunting his use of ChatGPT by highlighting the death of the idea of “education for education’s sake,” while journalist Aaron Bastani linked grade inflation to the fact that people are now paying for tuition, so may feel entitled to a higher test score. It’s very straight-forward: many students feel that we’re here so that we can get a job when we leave.
Decades after the initial move to marketise the system, universities have morphed from imperfect but productive centres of learning, to businesses catering for dispassionate consumers fixated on cost and recompense. The University of Edinburgh is spending big on projects to bring in new students, while students are footing the bill and staff are taking the brunt. Something big has to change, and fast. I wonder how much it will cost.
Photography by Mark Chan for The Student
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