As a union, we accept that the University of Nottingham’s financial crisis does not exist in isolation—it is part of a broader collapse in the funding model for UK universities alongside a series of local financial blunders. The government’s decision to freeze tuition fees for domestic students for the period from 2017-2024, combined with high inflation, has led to a sharp decline in real-term funding. Universities have increasingly relied on international students, who pay significantly higher fees, to balance the books. But this market-driven approach is inherently unstable—when international recruitment falters, as it has for Nottingham due to a decline in rankings and external immigration policies, financial trouble inevitably follows.
This is the reality of marketisation in higher education: a short-termist, profit-driven model that forces universities into unsustainable spending and debt cycles. As Jonathan Mills outlined in his article on the “Cost Allocation Death Spiral,” the obsession with internal accounting tricks and cost-cutting rather than sustainable financial planning leads to spiraling crises. When financial pressures hit, cuts are imposed on productive areas like teaching and research, undermining the very purpose of a university. Meanwhile, managerial excesses continue unchecked.
Sector wide mismanagement: groupthink and marketisation
The current crisis in UK higher education is often blamed on the national funding model. It’s true that public underfunding and a lack of domestic investment have forced universities into dependency on international student fees. But this isn’t the whole story. While sector leaders are quick to point to external pressures, this explanation conveniently obscures a parallel crisis of institutional mismanagement. In reality, both structural policy and managerial decision-making are to blame for the current chaos.
First, let’s consider the national context. Since the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, universities have been pushed to operate like private businesses. The Office for Students (OfS), created to enforce this market logic, rewards growth and competition over sustainability and academic integrity. Vice Chancellors chose to embrace this market logic and competitive attitude and expand rapidly, especially by recruiting international students, regardless of local capacity or educational coherence. The system is fragile: the OfS projects that nearly three-quarters of institutions may be in deficit by 2025–26. In this context, growth-at-any-cost becomes a survival strategy, and the public mission of universities is left behind.
However, this national picture doesn’t absolve institutional leaders of responsibility. Systematic mismanagement is a major part of the crisis. Too often, university executives have adopted policies that worsen local outcomes — not because they’re inevitable, but because they follow flawed priorities. One critical area is capital expenditure. Over the past decade, many universities have gone on building sprees, fueled by low interest rates and encouraged by league table logics that prize shiny campuses over academic depth. Nottingham has followed the same high-spending path as many other universities, channeling funds into flashy infrastructure projects and so-called “transformation” programmes that drain resources and demoralise staff. But rather than borrowing from banks, the University has chosen to fund these projects using its primary surplus—the money left over at the end of each financial year. Based on rosy primary surplus forecasts in University Medium Term Financial Plans (MTFP), the university commits itself to unwise levels of “strategic” expenditure on vanity projects that once started are near impossible to stop or scale down. This approach amounts to a form of academic austerity. To satisfy UEB’s appetite for vanity projects, savings must be made elsewhere to maintain these surpluses. This austerity has led to cuts in research and teaching budgets, the outsourcing of essential services at high cost, falling staff pay, and the neglect of basic maintenance across the estate.
These decisions, at Nottingham and elsewhere, come at a steep price. Staff are overworked, casualisation rises, and job losses become increasingly common. According to UCU, over 88 institutions — more than half the sector — have announced job cuts or restructures since 2022. Rather than challenge this trajectory, university leaders have mostly copied one another in pre-emptive cuts, seemingly to stay ahead of financial threats that may not yet exist. This is managerial groupthink: a defensive strategy based on fear, not strategy, and certainly not integrity. At Nottingham, this approach has led to instability, eroded trust, and what can only be called managed decline.
This context calls for a coordinated, multi-pronged response:
1. Local action
Staff and students must continue to demand that universities prioritise people over projects. Capital spending should be scrutinised, and immediate threats of redundancies must be resisted. Campaigns at Dundee and Cardiff show that credible strike threats can lead to reversals and pauses in harmful restructuring plans.
2. National dispute
A growing number of union members are backing the idea of a national trade dispute targeting the government’s funding model. Legal advice, including from Paul Nicholls KC, suggests this could qualify as a lawful “trade dispute” under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 if it is framed around terms and conditions of employment. Since pay, workloads, and job security are directly shaped by national funding policy and the duties imposed by the OfS, this legal route may be viable. Nottingham UCU members have already voted to support this approach.
3. Defending international students
Finally, while the reliance on international students as revenue streams is a symptom of a broken model, they must not be scapegoated or used as political pawns. Anti-migrant reforms from both major parties is not only morally wrong — it’s strategically counterproductive. History shows that trying to mimic the far right to retain voters often backfires. We need to advocate for an immigration system and a funding model that treats all students with dignity and ensures universities are not driven by xenophobia or opportunism.
To reverse the downward spiral, we must connect the dots between structural policy, managerial failure, and viable resistance. By situating local battles within this broader context we can begin to chart a path out of crisis — not university by university, but sector-wide.
Local Mismanagement: A Series of Costly Blunders
While the national crisis in university funding is real, Nottingham’s additional woes are significantly self-inflicted. Successive management teams have pursued grand but ill-conceived projects, wasting millions while starving core academic functions of resources. Among the worst offenders:
- Project Transform – A disastrous attempt to overhaul student administration. In the end, it cost around £82m against an initial budget of around £50m.
- Beacons of Excellence – Expensive flagship research initiatives with limited long-term impact.
- Campus Solutions – A student records system plagued with technical failures and operational issues, costing in the region of £16.4m each year.
- Unicore – A £35m flawed finance and HR system rollout that is causing major disruption. Who thought it was a good idea to roll it out just after the start of a new academic year?
- Castle Meadow Campus (CMC) – Perhaps the most egregious case of all, a £91.5 million investment in a site that still lacks a clear purpose. Initially justified as a home for the Business School, the idea was later abandoned, leaving a Grade II listed development with limited usability and no concrete plan for integration into the university’s strategy.
Despite these failures, the University Executive Board (UEB) continue to push forward with large scale capital spending plan over the next five years. With their recent catalogue of fiscal incompetence, can we trust them to prioritise the needs of students and staff, or will vanity projects and managerial whims continue to come first?
Who is Really Responsible?
University leadership is keen to blame past decision-makers for today’s financial crisis, but many of the same individuals remain in power, continuing to make poor decisions. Take a step back in time and look at who was on University Council and the University Executive Board back in 2021 when the University made the calamitous purchase of Castle Meadow Campus. Six individuals remain in place, including the Chair of Council) and the new Deputy VC).
However, the issue is less about individuals and more about a collective mindset that has presided over countless blunders—yet continues to operate unchanged. Senior management is filled with ambitious individuals eager to toe the party line rather than challenge poor decision-making, likely in pursuit of their own career advancement.
Many of those elected to Senate have witnessed numerous instances of senior managers vocally supporting the Castle Meadow project, despite overwhelming evidence that it was a disastrous mistake. If the same people responsible for this failure—and previous mismanaged projects—remain in charge, how can staff and students trust them to manage the university’s finances responsibly?
The truth is, we can’t.
Our new interim CFO may not have been present when his predecessor championed the Castle Meadow purchase, but he has already demonstrated worrying views of how a university should operate. In a recent webinar, he stated that “80% of students are on 25% of courses.” The lack of nuance is troubling. Student numbers in some schools, particularly in STEM, will always be constrained by external factors, such as lab space. Should we abandon the physical sciences or medicine simply because they lack the capacity to enroll as many students as computer science or business? Universities have always relied on different departments supporting each other through shifting trends. Higher education should embrace all fields of learning—not just the ones that look good on a CFO’s spreadsheet at a given moment.
The Role of Expensive Consultants
Instead of addressing its own failures, university management has turned to external consultants to determine where cuts should be made. One of the most prominent examples is Strive Higher, a consultancy engaged to shape the future of the university. Elected members of the University Senate were notably unimpressed by Strive Higher’s involvement, especially after they led an away day with Senators aimed at planning for Future Nottingham. Their approach was seen as generic and tokenistic, with Senators feeling that Strive Higher was more focused on pleasing management than engaging with actual staff. Little wonder, considering it is university management that continues to invest heavily in their services.
Worryingly, University accounts reveal a £30 million excess spend in the university’s finances in each of the past three years under the category of ‘professional and other fees.’ How much of this has gone to business and IT consultants proposing and implementing structural changes, generating a lucrative pipeline of business for themselves? Research shows how this is part of a wider trend of a ‘consultocracy’ which has impacted the public sector in general, and higher education in particular . This has been especially bad in the UK. What decisions are influenced by these highly paid consultants and at what cost to jobs, research, and student experience?
In this context, we can also consider MyMynd, a digital mental health and wellbeing platform now being used at the University. MyMynd provides staff with a behavioural health assessment and offers personalized resources to support and promote mental health. However, at a time of mass redundancies, high workloads, and growing uncertainty among staff, its introduction feels more like a sticking plaster over a deep wound. While it may appear to show care and compassion, in practice, it shifts the responsibility for coping onto individuals, asking staff to develop ‘resilience’ in the face of systemic dysfunction. Similar to the engagement of external consultants, MyMynd is likely a costly initiative where, instead of investing in secure employment, manageable workloads, or transparent governance, the University seems to be focusing resources on tools that address the symptoms rather than the underlying causes.
This pattern of outsourcing strategic decisions to consultants, like Strive Higher, while offering digital wellbeing solutions like MyMynd, highlights an institution unwilling to confront its own mismanagement. Until the University demonstrates a genuine commitment to addressing the root causes of stress, high workloads, low morale, and job insecurity, its actions will continue to erode staff trust and wellbeing.
