All the Russell Group unis in their financial crisis eras in 2024

It turns out that Russell Group unis are just as broke as the rest of us. Several Russell Group unis are in serious financial trouble in 2024, and are having to take drastic actions to avoid going bust.

Most UK unis are in debt to some degree. Because tuition fees haven’t risen in a decade, each uni now makes a loss of £2,500 per UK student. Unis were relying on international students and their higher fees to make up the difference, but now less and less international students are willing to go to uni in the UK. Can’t say I blame them.

So, here are the Russell Group unis in serious financial trouble in 2024.

Cardiff University

Maybe we should share out Unidays discount codes with Cardiff Uni to help it out x

As of January 2024, Cardiff Uni has a financial deficit of £12.7 million. Yikes. This summer, the Uni ran a voluntarily redundancy scheme to encourage higher-paid staff to retire early. In March, Cardiff announced plans to scrap ancient languages modules. The Uni couldn’t afford to run classes with so few students in.

Queen’s University Belfast

The BBC says this uni is on track to have a deficit of more than £11 million in the 2024-2025 academic year. Queen’s Uni is planning a voluntary severance scheme to get rid of 270 staff – over 5 per cent of its work force.

Unions are unimpressed with how Queen’s University Belfast is going about this. The University and College Union (UCU) told the BBC, “the union has not been supplied with the information required by law to engage in statutory consultation.”

University of Sheffield

Thoughts and prayers for Sheffield, guys

The uni has 2,200 fewer students than it did last year. Although plenty of UK students are applying to Sheffield still, there are a lot less freshers from China. According to the BBC, the Uni of Sheffield could have a £50 million shortfall by the end of the year.

University of York

The University of York is also in serious financial trouble. The uni needs to reduce it’s budget by £34 million somehow.

The uni is getting creative with ways to save money. York has lowered the entry requirements for international students, in the hope that more of them will pick York. Most Russell Group uni students get three As at A-Level, but the some courses at York now accept overseas undergrads with the equivalent of two Bs and a C, or postgrads with a 2:2 degree.

The uni also announced a voluntary severance scheme in April. The UCU guesses that between 300 and 700 staff members could leave on 31st October. I guess Halloween will be extra scary in York this year.

In September, the Uni of York announced it was going to shut the receptions in the Wentworth, Alcuin, Derwent and James buildings. It was too expensive to pay staff to run them.

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