Britain | Grads and grind

The broken business model of British universities

Frozen fees + fewer foreigners = big trouble

collage featuring a hand holding a graduation cap's tassel, a stack of books sits to the left, while coins scattered around hint at financial aspects like student debt. The background has bold red and blue shapes with graph-like lines.
Illustration: Klawe Rzeczy
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The Labour Party barely talked about higher education in the run-up to the general election in July. In government, universities’ problems are harder to ignore. In a dour speech on September 10th Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, included universities among a list of public services that he said were “crumbling” and “worse than we expected”.

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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Universities challenged”

From the September 21st 2024 edition

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