12 March 2019 
Matt Sisson, Projects and Membership Manager
HEPI has published the results of a poll it undertook recently on the perceptions of students of their university’s finances. Leading the headlines was the finding that 77% of students think the government should step in to bail out their institution should it hit financial trouble. Rachel Hewitt, HEPI’s Director of Policy and Advocacy, pointed out in the accompanying summary that “This research shows a worrying mismatch between students’ views of what should happen to a university in financial difficulty and the proposed action by the Office for Students.”
The BBC follows the story and picks a slightly different tack – namely the conflict over transparency, where 97% of students want to know if their HEI is in trouble, but where 84% admit they may choose differently armed with the knowledge. This “raised the risk that if a university admitted to financial problems it would be unable to recruit students and would be even more likely to be forced out of business.”
If you’d like a bit more in-depth reading, Wonkhe Associate Editor Jim Dickinson gets to grips with the issues, and asks the question; “should we bail out universities”, with inevitable comparisons with the financial services sector, among other insights.
