The House Article | The government must intervene before the universities crisis worsens

Starmer’s policies have failed to meaningfully support universities and colleges (Alamy)

4 min read49 min

Last Thursday the country overwhelmingly rejected Keir Starmer and the direction he has taken the Labour Party. As general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), I called for him to set out a timetable for his departure. I did so, not simply because he’s lost the confidence of the country, but because his government’s policies have failed to meaningfully support universities and colleges and, in many cases, have actively deepened the crisis facing them.

For months ministers have talked about the need to support young people: at Labour Party conference, in the King’s Speech, and in repeated promises about opportunity and national renewal. Yet the rhetoric has never been matched by investment. Britain is now on course to become the first generation to leave its children poorer than themselves. That is the defining struggle of our time, and education should be at the centre of any serious response to it. Instead, Labour has adopted little more than a holding position while the crisis in higher education worsens by the week.

UCU has been sounding the alarm on university finances for years. On Tuesday, Parliament’s Education Committee finally put its weight behind those warnings. Its report describes a sector under “unprecedented” financial pressure and warned dozens of universities are at risk of going bust within the next 12 months.

This is a sector that contributes hundreds of billions of pounds annually to the economy, employs half a million people, educates three million, and projects soft power across the world, with more world leaders graduating from the UK than any other country. Campuses also act as economic drivers in many of the post-industrial towns that were once considered Labour heartlands, creating jobs and building pride in local communities. In short, UK higher education remains one of the sectors Britain leads the world in, creating huge benefits: locally, nationally and globally.

Every pound of public money invested in higher education results in a £14 return. If last Thursday’s voters had seen meaningful investment locally, they may not have turned so resolutely against Labour. But instead of growth, Labour chose to launch self-defeating attacks on international students: a new levy, stricter rules for those on graduate visas, embracing ever more hostile migration rhetoric. It chose to sacrifice our universities on the altar of Reform’s hard-right immigration agenda in an attempt to win votes. This strategy ended in spectacular failure last Thursday, with voters from the centre, the left, and the right turning against the party like never before. Now, as with many of our universities, it is terminal for Labour.

 The consequences for universities, staff, students and local communities are now severe. If institutions begin collapsing before the next general election, the economic and social damage will be immense. Labour cannot claim to support growth while allowing one of the UK’s most successful sectors to fall apart.  

That is why the government must implement the Education Committee report’s recommendations on protecting staff, students and local communities from institutional failure. We are calling for direct government intervention before the crisis spirals further.

This must start with a lifting of the hostile migration policies that have harmed higher education, jobs, local economies and resulted in millions of voters abandoning Labour for the Green Party and Plaid Cymru.

Ministers need to recognise the scale of intervention now required. Labour has just announced it will nationalise British Steel, protecting 2,700 jobs. This is the same number of staff that just one institution, the University of Nottingham, put at risk of redundancy this week. Over the past year, UK universities have announced more than 15,000 job cuts.

UCU members continue to fight, and marking boycotts are due to go ahead at multiple institutions if universities refuse to prioritise saving jobs and courses. But our members alone cannot resolve a crisis created by political failure and government inaction.

If Labour is serious about growth, national renewal and the future of young people, it must stop treating higher education as an afterthought. A revived university sector is essential not only for students and staff, but for the future of the UK economy and for any hope Starmer’s successor will have to rebuild public trust and ensure they are not remembered as Britain’s last Labour prime minister.

Jo Grady is general secretary of the UCU