Financially, the sector is not in the best place right now and increasingly we are seeing universities attempting to find savings or efficiencies.

Contrary to some popular beliefs, there’s not a great deal of discretionary spending that can be cut without any detriment to the quality and volume of what universities do. Any “low hanging fruit” (of the sort consultants dream about) has long since been harvested – we are very much getting into the territory of paring down the core offer.

Universities UK ran a little survey of 57 member universities to get a sense of where these savings are coming from.

Half have cut courses, with around the same proportion cutting the number of optional modules available. As well as offering less choice to future undergraduates, this affects (sometimes to the extent of causing consumer law issues) the experience of current undergraduates. Optional modules can often be the only way in which students can pursue their own individual academic interests within a discipline – many may have enrolled on a course precisely because of the existence of one of these opportunities.

In future 88 per cent are or may be considering more course closers over the next three academic years, 85 per cent are or may be looking at further course consolidations.

Staff costs are the largest costs faced by a university – we’re at the stage where some providers are having to make compulsory redundancies in order to stay viable. According to the survey 25 per cent have done so since 2022-23. There’s no figure given for voluntary redundancy schemes, but you don’t have to look far to think the figures will be much higher there.

And the nature of academic roles may change too – 26 per cent will be considering cutting spending on academic research in the next three years – a further 53 per cent may be doing so. And 20 per cent have done so already. We learn that 18 per cent of providers have already cut staff time allocated to research.

Concerningly, 15 per cent have cut student bursaries or hardship funds, while more than half say they will or may be considering this in the future.

As we’ve noted on Wonkhe before, the last three years have seen many universities skimp on estates maintenance. It’s a way to free up cash in the short term, but is very much a matter of storing up problems in the years to come. Around 60 per cent have done this already – some 89 per cent are willing to consider this in future.