Higher Education, Universities Futures and Academic Capitalism

Universities across the UK are in crisis. 45% of HE providers in England are expected to report deficits in 2025-26 and one in six institutions holds less than 30 days of liquidity, the legal minimum required to ensure their viability (OfS 2026).

Rising operation costs, fierce competition, and declining state support have left universities struggling for survival. Government policies and visa restrictions have resulted in a £2.5 billion net loss in funding for HE providers since 2024-25. Meanwhile, aided by expensive consultancies, university managers have taken on huge loans to invest in new infrastructure.

While previous Conservative governments may have sown the seeds of this crisis, the current Labour government has no plan to solve the problem beyond calls to universities to ‘do more’ with the same money. Since 2020 over half the UK's 166 universities have initiated voluntary severance, restructuring, or compulsory redundancy and the UCU calculates over 15,000 academic posts were cut in 2025 alone. Meanwhile, student loans are producing levels of debt that many experts condemn as both unsustainable and immoral.

Against this background, the roundtable will examine the university crisis by asking:

• How did we get here? What effects is this crisis having on university employees and students?

• How are different institutions/departments responding to these challenges?

• Is it time to re-think our HE funding model, and if so, how?

• What do these developments tell us about the wider trajectory of academic capitalism?

• How can anthropology contribute to these debates?

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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