Traditional red brick universities risk extinction unless they respond creatively to growing competition from free online courses, private providers and increasing globalisation in higher education, a former government education adviser has warned.
The study, “An Avalanche is Coming”, is published after global university rankings this month showed a greater polarisation between elite “superbrands” such as Oxford and Cambridge, and others such as Leeds, which has dropped out of the top 100 for the first time. The league, compiled by the Times Higher Education magazine, signals that British universities are losing ground to institutions in emerging Asian economies.
Sir Michael Barber, the report’s author, is a former adviser to Tony Blair and chief education adviser at Pearson, which owns the Financial Times. He identified “the ordinary red brick university that just ticks over” as most vulnerable, but said it was hard to predict when the “avalanche” would strike.