The Great University Con

by David Craig

“…are spending much more time on preparation, assessment, administration and the needs of non–traditional students. … 57% said preparation hours had increased and contact time with students had diminished and 42% now experience ‘frequent or severe’ stress. More than 60% described work with non–traditional (widening participation) students as now ‘significant’ or ‘very significant’.”226

  Survey after survey show that academics resent the additional resource and time that this paperwork diverts from their teaching and research in a system in which this has already been squeezed to the minimum. We can see this from individual academics’ quotations in the 2008 UCU survey on stress, which talk about:

  “Increased bureaucracy taking up valuable time: ie having to justify everything that is done to leave a ‘paper trail’.” 227

  “The relentless increase in paperwork and administrative procedures and the declining staff student ratio.”228

  “The difficulties come from bureaucratic burdens imposed by remote administrators, pointless form–filling.”229

  It is also visible in the collective responses of academics in surveys. In 2007, another UCU and ATL (a union for education professionals) survey into stress found that: “77% of respondents felt that their workloads had increased over the past three years. Asked what factors had contributed to this, more than 83% blamed more administrative duties, while more than 47% cited rising student–to–staff ratios.”230

  In 2008, a UCU survey reported on the impact that this increased paperwork had on the capacity of academics to work with and support their students. Despite the backdrop of increasing fees during the previous decade, the survey found that: “...nearly eight out of ten said they were spending less or the same amount of time with students as they did ten years ago. But lecturers say they are snowed under with paperwork. One in four said they spent more than 25 hours a week on administration.”231

  Not much had changed a decade later. In 2017, a Times Higher Education Supplement survey of over a 1,000 academics found over 72% complaining that there was “too much administration associated with teaching at my institution”.232

  Bullying

  “Only 45% of UCU members in Higher Education could say they were never subjected to bullying at work.” UCU Stress Survey 2011233

  “At least 1,957 university staff asked for support or advice due to bullying or harassment during 2007, 2008 and 2009. The true figure is likely to be a great deal higher since many universities do not record informal complaints.”234

  Academics are bullied for a variety of reasons – because they refuse to collude in “dumbing down”, because they aren’t producing the expected research outputs235, or because they are struggling with paperwork and workloads. The 2008 UCU report provided the following anonymous quotations from academics:

  “I have been bullied and have received counselling for this. I am now on regular medication.” 236

  “Our head of department bullies staff who speak their mind ... Bullying takes the form of higher teaching loads, less resources for research, and unreasonable requests.”237

  “I have managed to ‘keep my head down’ and therefore do not suffer from direct bullying or intimidation; I see its effects on others. This is extremely upsetting and frustrating as I feel I am powerless to do anything about it.”

  In many cases, the bully is also a victim of bullying by their own bosses. Some universities foster and reproduce a culture of bullying across the whole organisation. A 2007 UCU survey of Leeds Metropolitan University found that: “Some 96% of respondents said they felt inhibited about positively criticising policies of Leeds Met and 63% reported witnessing bullying at work. 42% feel intimidated at work, 37% feel their work is belittled and 24% feel they have been humiliated by bullying incidents.”238

  This not only runs contrary to the underlying spirit and culture of academia, but it is also detrimental to the well–being of staff and their ability to teach and inspire students. The growth of bullying as a management technique within UK universities seems to be a direct result of the degree–factory university. It is most visible in new universities, where the majority of expansion has occurred with limited resources. In the 2012 UCU stress survey, 14 out of 15 English universities with the worst stress levels for bullying were new universities.239

  The next generation

  “Only about a third of postgraduates, who are employed as teachers, feel that they receive appropriate supervision and feedback. In a survey of 350 postgraduates... 63% per cent had received no advice on professional development or training.” Times Higher Education Supplement 2011240

  Universities are facing an even bigger problem than a demoralized and unhappy workforce. It isn’t clear that they have a sustainable system in place to develop the quantity or quality of future academics that expansion has made necessary. There are many dimensions to this problem, but the underlying issue is a short–term and reactive approach to employee management that has been driven largely by expansion. There are three specific concerns: an increased reliance on international academics within UK universities, the growth in the number of part–time academics within universities and ever–decreasing pay levels for academics. Each of these issues is well–documented and each negatively affects teaching and learning.

  1. Dependence on international academics

  The UK has been highly successful at attracting academics from around the world to teach in its universities (Figure 1).

  Figure 1 - The growth of international academics in UK universities

  During the last twenty years statistics show that: “In 1995/96 a total of 16,705 overseas academics were employed (13.2% of the total workforce). By 2015/16 this figure was 57,548 (21.3% of the total workforce).”241

  This is a massive increase in both the relative and absolute numbers of international academics employed by UK universities. It has happened largely because overseas academics with more experience and a greater track record of publications from many countries, where salaries are lower than in the UK, can often be employed for the same salary as a domestic postgraduate with no experience or publications. Because staff salaries represent by far the largest part of a university’s running costs, this is a key area where universities can save money. The increase also reflects the fact that UK universities are not producing sufficient postgraduates in STEM subjects to keep pace with the demand for people to teach and research in these subjects. This was the view of the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association:

  “The influx of overseas academic staff reflects the impact of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) as Higher Education Institutes seek to improve their ratings and shortages of qualified, home post–doctoral students in particular subjects to fill teaching posts.” 242

  As a result, the subjects where our universities increasingly rely on international academics are STEM subjects and languages, the same subjects that generations of politicians and business leaders have assured us are of central importance to the UK’s long–term economic success. A 2007 report by Universities UK (UUK) noted that: “The majority of foreign academics tend to be younger than their UK colleagues and are concentrated in languages, computer science, maths, physics, engineering, technology and social or political studies.”243

  Not only is the UK heavily dependent on overseas academics for STEM subjects, we are also increasingly dependent on recruiting international research students to study these subjects at postgraduate level. The scale of this issue was made clear in the same UUK report, which revealed that in STEM and language subjects: “Non–UK students are particularly prominent at postgraduate level, making up 71 per cent of taught postgraduate enrolments and 48 per cent on research programmes in 2005/06.”244

  This shortage of domestic STEM postgraduates reflects the unbalanced and dysfunctional way in which expansion has occurred in UK universities at the subject level.

  2. The rise of th
e part-time academic

  “In 1994/95 there were 102,701 full–time academic staff and 12,020 part–time academic staff. In 2015/16 there were 135,015 full–time academic staff and 66,365 part–time academic staff.”245

  Between 1994 and 2016 the number of academic staff on full–time contracts increased by 31% while those on part–time contracts increased by over 500% (Figure 2).

  Figure 2 - Part-time academics 1994-2016246

  This figure cuts to the heart of expansion – it has been done on the cheap, with disregard for the long–term consequences for universities, the quality of the student experience and the quality of graduates. By definition, part–time academics have less time to offer students. Moreover, they have fewer employment rights and reduced job security. All of this makes them both cheaper and much more compliant employees, more vulnerable to pressure by university management who not only have the carrot of a full–time contract, but also the stick of removing contracted hours. Young academics (especially young female academics) and academics from ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented amongst these part–time academics. In 2011, 38% of full–time academic staff were female compared with 55% of part–time academic staff.247

  This precarious twilight world between proper employment and postgraduate status can continue for many years until an academic can secure a full–time post within a university. This uncertainty favours those with independent means or a family able to support them, further reducing the potential pool from which future academics can emerge.

  3. Academic pay

  In addition to worsening work conditions and increased barriers to entry, expansion has also seen the rewards associated with academia reduce substantially. In the 1980s, a senior lawyer, a GP and a professor might have expected to earn roughly equivalent salaries. In 2009, in contrast, the average UK professor made £66,000248, the average GP salary was £110,000249 and the salary of a circuit judge was £128,296.250 This makes it even more difficult for universities to attract the brightest and best students to academic careers. Professor Alison Richard, the vice chancellor of Cambridge University, told the House of Commons in 2007:

  “… a very bright graduate will not necessarily stay on to do a PhD. It is now very difficult to find a British student studying subjects like engineering and economics at postgraduate level. Competition from overseas universities and from industry offering better salaries and career opportunities entice the best students away.”251

  Not only is academic pay uncompetitive against other professions, it is also uncompetitive compared with academic salaries elsewhere in the world. The USA, Canada and Australia pay their academics more than the UK. Countries investing in their universities, such as China and the various oil–rich Arab states, are also offering significantly higher academic salaries under much more favourable tax regimes.252

  Whilst many academics might not be primarily driven by economic motivations, they will require an economic settlement which allows them access to certain basics such as a mortgage. The relative decline in academic pay is undermining even this. For example, between 2009 and 2015 academic pay rose by 5.4% against inflation of 17.2%, meaning a real terms decrease of 11.8% in academic pay. As the cost of living increases and salaries remain stagnant, this will only increase the pressure on academics or would–be academics to consider other career avenues.

  The problems in academic pay are exacerbated by the collective pay bargaining orchestrated by the academic unions. As a result of this agreement, academics in different subjects receive very similar, if not identical, pay depending on their seniority rather than their performance or the relative value of their subject expertise. It also means that different universities largely pay the same rates to their staff, whether they are working at Derby or Oxford, Cambridge or Cumbria. This means that a professor of engineering receives roughly the same salary as a professor of media studies. This in no way corresponds to the different salaries that these two professors could expect to earn for their respective expertise in the international academic marketplace or the commercial sector. Nor does it correspond to the value the academics provide to their students and taxpayers.

  The relative fall in academic salaries, the imposition of a collective pay structure and the need for universities to recruit staff with academic experience and publications have also hampered the efforts of universities to recruit specialist staff for key subjects. In 2009, the House of Commons Select Committee took evidence from professional bodies for medicine and engineering which revealed two concerns. In subjects such as medicine, where the professional rewards far outstrip those of academics, it is impossible for universities to offer salary packages that would attract staff with these skills. If a qualified doctor can earn about twice the salary of an academic, then how many doctors are likely to want to take a pay cut of that magnitude to teach? Given the growing need for medical academics to train increasing numbers of doctors to care for a growing and ageing population, the Medical Council stressed the seriousness of this issue in 2009:

  “There has been a dramatic fall in the academic workforce over the past decade. The number of senior academic trainees and fully qualified academics stands at only 2,937 – a fall of 27% since 2000. In addition, clinical academics are an ageing group ... The decline in the academic workforce has occurred at the same time as an unparalleled increase in the number of medical students and the establishment of new medical schools, especially in England.” 253

  The Engineering Council raised the issue of universities prioritizing recruitment of staff with academic papers and journal articles over those with practical real–world experience. This is driven by the universities’ need to maximize their research revenue by employing academics with numerous publications. It therefore precludes the recruitment of staff from industry with experience but few publications. Unfortunately, these are the people with exactly the skills needed to teach future generations of engineers how to design bridges and circuit boards for nuclear power stations. The Engineering Council warned that: “Thus, increasingly, engineering students are being taught by staff who may have little direct experience of engineering practice.... funding constraints militate against universities employing engineering academics who are from industry as they lack the required publications record (for the) Research Assessment Exercise.”254

  Vice Chancellors: pay and performance

  Expansion has not been doom and gloom for all those who work in universities, however. In fact, there is one group of university employees who seem to have done rather well out of it: “Average vice chancellor pay in 1994/95 was £94,000.255 In 2015/2016, average vice chancellor pay (including pension contributions) was £274,405.”256

  In 2012, a review of public–sector pay found that the median vice chancellor pay was over 15 times that of staff at the bottom of the university pay scale, and that this ratio was 19:1 within Russell Group universities.257 In comparison, pay increases for academic staff have lagged dramatically: “In 1995/96 the average academic salary was £25,873, by 2008/09 this had risen to £43,486.”258

  Between 1994 and 2016 vice chancellors’ average pay increased by nearly 300%. The total inflation rate between 1994 and 2016 was 87%. So, if vice chancellors’ pay had simply kept pace with inflation, their average pay would now be around £175,000. To put this into context, the last two decades of these above–inflation increases cost students and the taxpayer an additional £16 million or so per year. A 2012/13 investigation revealed that Russell Group vice chancellors enjoyed an average salary rise of more than £22,000 or around 50% of the average academic salary. This average increase of 8.1% for vice chancellors in 2012/13 contrasted sharply with a 1% average increase for other university employees in the same year. In 2014, Sheffield University awarded its vice chancellor an annual increase of £105,000 (a 39% increase), in the same year the university continued to ignore pleas to pay its staff the living wage of £7.65 per hour.


  Universities UK (UUK), the body which represents vice chancellors, has routinely defended these possibly indefensible increases. In 2012 Nicola Dandridge, their chief executive, said that the salaries of vice chancellors: “...reflected what it takes to recruit and retain individuals able to run complex, multimillion–pound organisations, which are operating in an increasingly competitive, global market”.259

  Unfortunately for this argument, vice chancellor performance has not always matched pay. For example, in 2014 the Times Higher Education Supplement published research showing that vice chancellors’ pay often grew in the face of declining applications to their universities, noting that: “In one case, a vice–chancellor’s total remuneration package rose by nearly a fifth despite applications, a key factor in a university’s financial health … falling by a quarter.”260

  Similarly, research in 2014 by the Brighton Business School, which examined vice chancellor pay awards in relation to university performance indicators (such as improvements in funding awards and widening participation), found that a “significant proportion” of these awards bore no relation to performance.261

  Whereas vice chancellors were traditionally seen as academic leaders, they now wish to be viewed as Chief Executive Officers leading dynamic multi–million pound organisations. This heroic re–imagining has been deployed regularly to defend the trebling of their average salaries during the last 15 years. Baroness Blackstone’s statement in 2002 is typical: “But clearly, universities will wish the salaries of their vice–chancellors to reflect the fact that they are successfully running multimillion–pound businesses.”262

  This analogy is not entirely accurate as universities are still largely state–funded institutions rather than “multimillion–pound businesses”. Vice chancellors are not competing at risk in a genuinely open marketplace. But rather they are operating an oligopoly in a walled garden within the public sector that they have lobbied extensively to remain walled. The number of these “businesses” suffering financial crises and rising concerns over their product quality might also raise questions about the use of the word “successfully”.