Now universities are working out how to get by with fewer of them. The problem will be
most acute in countries with strict travel restrictions. In July 2019, 144,000
international students arrived in Australia. In July 2020, just 40 made it.
Support from politicians will be limited. This is partly a question of priorities.
Universities must compete with businesses and the public sector for financial support.
But it also reflects the fact that they have lost some of their lustre in recent years.
The expansion of higher education has coincided with poor productivity growth in
much of the rich world, undermining faith in universities’ ability to boost growth.
Political disputes are increasingly divided along educational lines: between the have-
degrees and the have-nots.
In America, Australia and England, right-wing governments gave much less support
than universities wanted to help them through the first wave of the pandemic. In
America, the financial context for universities will deteriorate, as states respond to
falling tax revenues by cutting spending.
Universities will have to cut back as a result. Grandiose building projects will be put on
hold. Staff with short-term contracts will lose their jobs. In America, official figures
suggest that the college workforce has shrunk by 7% since the start of the pandemic. Job
losses appear to be even bigger in Australia.
Some universities will disappear altogether. In some cases the process will be smoothly
managed, and the troubled institution will engineer a merger with a stronger neighbour.
But there will also be bankruptcies, most often in America. Edmit, a college-planning
outfit, estimates that a third of American private colleges are on course to run out of
money within six years.
Institutions wishing to avoid this fate must find new ways to make money. Many are
working out how to teach from a distance. Others are looking to offer short, practical
courses to the temporarily jobless.
By the end of 2021 things may start to improve. Universities provide somewhere for
youngsters to wait out a recession, and thus tend to see enrolment grow after economic
downturns. There may even be pent-up demand among international students who
have put off studying for a year. But it will be a long wait for many universities, and not
all will make it through the crisis.
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