I wasn’t supposed to go to university. Nobody in my family had done so before.
It wasn’t a path that felt designed for people like me. It was something other people’s children did.
But I did go, eventually – close to home and with no small amount of uncertainty. And it changed the course of my life.
I start there because, amid all the debate about the future of higher education, I’m increasingly struck by how rarely we discuss what universities are actually for.
Instead, much of the public conversation – particularly in the popular press – has become dominated by a different set of questions. Which universities are running deficits? Which institutions are cutting staff or recruiting fewer students? Which balance sheets appear stronger or weaker than they did twelve months ago?
These are legitimate questions. Financial sustainability matters. Universities cannot fulfil their missions if they are not financially viable.
But there is a growing risk that we confuse measures of current financial performance with measures of future institutional health.
Under pressure
The higher education sector is operating in conditions that would have been difficult to imagine even a decade ago.
Inflationary pressures, changing demographics, fluctuating demand, political uncertainty, rapidly evolving technologies and shifting employer expectations are reshaping the environment in which universities operate.
Yet many of the measures we use to assess institutional success still reflect assumptions from a different era: an era of predictable growth, expanding student numbers, and relative policy stability.
The challenge facing universities today is not recreating the conditions of 2016. It is building institutions capable of thriving in 2036.
Too often, success in our sector is framed around preservation: how do we protect existing models, maintain established structure, and navigate immediate pressures? But the bigger challenge is understanding what kind of universities tomorrow’s students, employers, and communities will need.
I believe the universities that will flourish over the next decade will be those most willing to reimagine how they teach, support their students and staff, conduct research, engage with their communities and create opportunity. They will understand that long-term success depends not on clinging to old certainties, but on building institutions that remain relevant, distinctive, and valuable in a rapidly changing world.
In that context, an institution’s willingness to reshape itself may be every bit as important as its latest financial return.
This is where I think the sector faces a profound leadership challenge.
It’s time to adapt
For understandable reasons, periods of pressure often encourage caution.
Universities reduce expenditure, postpone decisions and search for efficiencies in the hope that conditions will improve.
Sometimes those actions are necessary, but there is a danger when incremental cost-saving becomes a substitute for strategic choice.
The question cannot simply be how to preserve existing models for as long as possible. It must be whether those models remain fit for purpose.
That will be an uncomfortable conversation for many institutions. It requires university leaders and governing bodies to confront difficult questions about academic portfolios, operating models, partnerships, estates and organisational structures.
But avoiding those questions does not make them disappear.
Indeed, one of the biggest mistakes we can make is to assume that transformation is evidence of weakness. An admission of failure, even.
Too often, organisational change is interpreted as a sign that something has gone wrong. Yet in many cases the opposite may be true. Institutions that recognise shifts in their operating environment and act decisively in response may be demonstrating precisely the qualities that will define future success.
I am convinced that the strongest universities of the next decade will not be those that experienced the least disruption during this period. They will be those that were most willing to adapt and transform.
Building for the world of tomorrow
At Brighton, we have chosen to respond to these challenges through a programme of transformation designed to ensure long-term sustainability, academic distinctiveness, and radical relevance to the students and communities we serve.
We are doing what is right for our university and our place – but the principle extends far beyond any single institution.
Across the sector, leaders are grappling with the same fundamental question: how do we create universities that remain sustainable, relevant, and impactful in a very different world?
That question becomes even more urgent when we consider the students who will graduate into the economy of the 2030s.
Artificial intelligence is already reshaping how work is performed across multiple sectors. Employers are demanding different skills. Career paths are becoming even less linear and even more fluid. The knowledge, capabilities, and personal resilience students need are evolving rapidly.
In that environment, institutional success cannot be judged solely by reference to historic metrics. We should also be asking whether universities are preparing for a future that is arriving faster than many of us expected.
Are they building meaningful partnerships with employers? Are they contributing to the economic and civic life of their regions? Are they adapting their curricula and learning environments to reflect emerging realities? Are they creating opportunities for students from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in higher education?
And are they ensuring those students are able to thrive and succeed in a way that many groups currently are not.
These are the measures that may ultimately tell us more about the long-term health of an institution than a single year’s accounts.
My own experience reminds me why that matters.
The value of the university I attended was not that it was financially solvent. It was that it created possibilities that would otherwise have remained closed to me.
And that remains the fundamental purpose of higher education.
The universities that succeed in 2036 will be the ones that were prepared to make difficult choices, embrace transformation, and redefine their role in response to a rapidly changing world.
So, rather than asking which institutions are experiencing disruption, we should be asking which institutions are using disruption to become more relevant than ever before.
The sector should not be afraid to make that case. If universities are redesigning themselves around the needs of future students, employers and communities, then we must be equally ambitious in how we explain success.
Public debate cannot remain focused solely on financial symptoms while overlooking the long-term value institutions create.
Our task now is not simply to navigate change, but to demonstrate where that change is leading.
Because the real measure of a university’s health is not what appears in last year’s accounts. It is the value it creates for the next generation.
