Talk of the financial crisis is difficult to avoid: on both sides of the Atlantic those in banking, law and related sectors are beginning to feel the pinch. But what impact could the credit crunch, recession and general economic implosion have on Higher Education and those who work in it? This topic is addressed by a fascinating article in The Chronicle this week and I thought I’d try to look at the UK side of the story.
The Chronicle article, written by an anonymous Dean, says that this current funding crisis has seen public institutions have their budgets slashed and private ones have endowments seriously reduced. Things have also been incredibly tight for UK universities. Several, including my own institution, have money tied up in banks that have now become risky prospects. The story broke about a month ago that around a dozen UK universities have about £77 million invested in failed Icelandic banks.
Also we lecturers have just got a pay rise! Great news for us, but it’s come at a time when universities are struggling to meet their wage bills and there are rumours on the grapevine that our pay rise will mean job losses. Our pay deal, signed two years ago, was linked to the retail price index and expected to be 2.5-3%. But of course the index has shot up and we’re now getting 5% pay rises. Some say this only makes our pay in line with inflation, others that lecturers’ pay is rising too fast. Whichever side of the fence you sit on that one, there’s no getting away from the fact that belts will be tightened to compensate next year.
In the US commentators are wondering whether the financial crisis will mean that the number of faculty (ie permanent) positions is further eroded while more and more adjunct (temporary) staff are taken on. Concerns run in the opposite direction in the UK with cuts in staffing level likely to come from the pool of hourly paid and temporary staff, not only putting them in a precarious position but ensuring that permanent staff have a drastically increased teaching load. This all comes at a time when we’re waiting for the RAE results to come out and because of this few institutions are hiring at all. Challenging times for academics, whatever stage your career may be at!
