This document summarizes Malcolm Gillies' presentation on the challenges facing universities. It discusses: 1. The levels of challenge facing universities, including declining funding, rising costs, and increased competition. 2. Specific policies like the UK's White Paper that emphasize affordability, quality, and value for money in higher education. 3. Changes required of universities, like new business models, international recruitment, redesigning programs, and improving efficiency. The document also examines issues like the growth of MOOCs, calls for cheaper degrees, declines in part-time enrollment, and questions around balancing affordability, access, and quality in higher education.

1. 2013: Universities –
the ultimate challenge?
Malcolm Gillies, Vice-Chancellor
London Metropolitan University
AUA Managing Change in HE Open Forum
5 July 2013

2. 2011: The challenges, the
changes – preparing
Three parts:
1. Levels of challenge
2. Specifics of the White Paper
3. Changing administration and
management

3. 2012: The challenges, the
changes – doing them
1. 6 key questions
2. A case study: Affordable Quality
Education
3. Leadership, management,
consensus building, collegiality
4. Introduction to shared services

4. 2012: 6 Questions
1 Adaptation, status quo, revolution?
2 Is our purpose right?
3 Is our mission now viable?
4 Local, national, international domain?
5 Serving academic interests?
6 Administrative and support functions?

5. JOIN OUR REVOLUTION

7. Affordable Quality University Education
Education for the mass (97%) of HE participants
Affordable to the “whole community”, wherever
the widening participation may come from
Quality: “Decent education . . .”
Value: “For a decent price”.
An Age of Austerity: Declining living standards
In summary: Part of the continuing massification
of HE at a time of, or because of, austerity.

8. Affordable quality education
1. We are committed to affordable and
equitable practice
2. We are committed to providing value
for money
3. We are committed to an access
approach.

10. Leadership
• From centralised “dictatorship” to faculty-based
leadership → the Dean’s role
• From a culture of coordinated course delivery to
one of reengaged individual pedagogy →
teaching responsibility
• From costs model to resourcing model →
financial responsibility and reward
• From entitlement of teaching-and-research to
the obligations of different scholarships →
talent management

11. Management
• Transformation: reshaped portfolio, staffing
profile, student profile, estates, finances, new
ventures – under-resourced, over-regulated?
• Quality, efficiency, quantity – compromise?
• People, incl. staff morale, student satisfaction:
focus, balance, dedication, faith?
• Relationships: collaborating and competing?

13. 2013: Leading through
Change
UK Border Agency: from revocation to reinstatement
The danger: loss of reputation
The response: protecting the core business
The consequences: a tough nine-point action plan
The challenge: repairing the damage, regaining
international business; turning adversity into
advantage.

14. 2012/15 Action Plan
1. Portfolio: what we teach
2. Fees: what we cost and charge
3. Business Process Redesign: how we do business
4. Business School Redesign: how we compete
5. International Re-launch: how we recapture markets
6. Estates: what we physically need
7. Contracts: how we gain better value from investment
8. Benefits: complying with and targeting benefits
9. Programme Management: coordination and control of actions

16. Supply/demand factors: UK today?
National brand positioning
Award standards, QA
Pedagogy, curriculum
Product competitiveness
Quick, intensive degrees
English-language

17. Supply/demand factors: UK today?
Disciplinary/professional flux
Masters concentration
STEM challenge
Cost, including exchange rate
Relatively expensive fees
Weakening currency

18. Supply/demand factors: UK today?
Visa/immigration issues
Crisis of “bogus” colleges
“Tens of thousands” net immigration
Post-study work changes
Only “brightest and best”
Exceptionals
Relations with EU and with India

19. Drivers of change
• Cost
• Quality
• Value for Money (Quality for Price)
• Technology
• Mass Dissemination (MOOCS)
• Internationalizing of Accreditation
• Mass Opinion, Mass Action

20. UK Growth/Decline in source countries,
2010/11 vs 2011/12

21. Global higher education: the mass?
World population: over 7 billion
Tertiary education students: over 150 million
Most studying at mass education institutions
(97% outside global “top 200”)
Common themes: affordability;
accessibility; jobs; the role of the state

22. Global higher education: cross-border
students (the elite?)
Cross-border students: over 4 million
(global 2-3%, static percentage)
Half from Asia; quarter from Europe
Most (over 85%) go to OECD countries
[Transnational students: studying for an
award of another country]
Common themes: accreditation; status;
“talent skimming”; immigration

23. Affordability and value
Holding Colleges Accountable for
Cost, Value and Quality
“Now, even with better high schools, most young people
will need some higher education. It’s a simple fact: the
more education you have, the more likely you are to have
a job and work your way into the middle class. But today,
skyrocketing costs price way too many young people
out of a higher education, or saddle them with
unsustainable debt. . . .” (Barack Obama, State of the Union
address, 12 February 2013)

24. Obama continues
“Through tax credits, grants, and better loans, we have
made college more affordable for millions of students
and families over the last few years. But taxpayers
cannot continue to subsidize the soaring cost of higher
education. Colleges must do their part to keep costs
down, and it’s our job to make sure they do. . . .”
(Obama, State of the Union address, 12 February 2013)

25. Obama concludes
“Tonight, I ask Congress to change the Higher Education
Act, so that affordability and value are included in
determining which colleges receive certain types of
federal aid. And tomorrow, my Administration will
release a new “College Scorecard” that parents and
students can use to compare schools based on a simple
criteria: where you can get the most bang for your
educational buck.”
(Obama, State of the Union address, 12 February 2013)

26. US college tuition fees: “Not what it used to be”, The Economist, 1 December 2012

27. The “$10,000 degree”
• Rick Perry, Governor of Texas
• Rick Scott, Governor of Florida
The “inexpensive degree” initiative, in
response to:
36 US states decreasing HE funding
8 increasing HE funding
6 maintaining HE funding

28. Perry to MOOCS
“Here Texas is just part of a major, potentially
transformational trend. Harvard and Massachusetts
Institute of Technology are among the colleges offering
free, not-for-credit instruction . . . what are known as
massive open online courses, or MOOCs. Some
colleges have begun testing online courses for credit.
Online instruction can remove the redundancy of having
instructors around the country delivering the same
lecture.” (“$10k college degrees are on to something”, USA Today, 2
December 2012)

29. MOOCS
• The further democratization of content?
• “The MOOC moment is upon us; it won’t go
away. We are in the midst of a seriously
disruptive moment.” (Martin Bean, Open
University UK)
• Showing “the best of education to the students
of the world”. (Bean)
• Delivering value for free, or for a fee? Or from
free to fee?

30. Questions
A Can a cheap degree be a good degree?
B How can universities reduce costs by
one-third to one-half without damaging
quality?
C Has the face-to-face nature of the
University now had its day, and will
everything soon be a MOOC?

31. So what is wrong?
The challenges of repeated restructures, mergers
and campus closures, on-going industrial disputes .
. . The erosion of collegiality in the face of a
competitive ethos, the muzzling of academics,
public pronouncements, the introduction of mass
casualisation, cuts to the arts, humanities and
social sciences, diminished status in light of the
rise of the sovereign consumer, obsession with
brand promotion, and so on and so forth.” (Richard Hill,
The Australian online, 3 July 2013)

32. A case study: part-time
40 per cent downturn?
Model is “bust”? (Langlands)
Do we know why?
How do we know these students are not
still studying?
Do we have a “sector” or a sectoral
response any more?

33. Contact
Malcolm Gillies
m.gillies@londonmet.ac.uk
020 7133 2001