The unfixable university? Equity, politics, and Higher Education reform
Richard Budd is a Lecturer in Higher Education at Lancaster University and the keynote speaker at the Emerging Researchers Conference 2026 in Tampere. His keynote, “Making Space for Socially Just Academic Practice,” draws on the themes explored in this post.
University staff around the world are being made redundant, courses are closing, departments are being restructured, and the institutions hit hardest are often the most inclusive ones. The current state of higher education raises a question that educational researchers can’t easily answer – can universities ever actually be fixed?
What’s wrong with Higher Education?
The list of problems encountered by and within universities is considerable. As an illustration, the sector I work in, in the UK, is shrinking and being substantially reshaped. The term crisis is potentially overused in analyses of higher education, but it is hard to see it as hyperbole in this case when virtually every institution is in the process of implementing extensive internal reorganisations, large scale redundancies, and course closures. This has been a nervous time for me, still is for many others, and the worst-case scenario has already been realised for tens of thousands of dedicated staff.
How we arrived here – as well as how we are trying to get out of it – has been widely discussed. It is the result of policies which frame education solely as a financial investment and knowledge as a commodity for exploitation, with management approaches complementing this mindset. It is notable that the institutions hardest hit are those with the most inclusive admissions and pedagogical cultures, while the subjects at the greatest risk are those in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. This potentially takes those subjects away from students who are not privileged, which is a travesty. At the same time staff workloads are known to be too high, and precarious work is widespread. Staff morale is understandably low, and there are ongoing concerns for students’ deteriorating mental health.
The implications for both equity and quality are troubling. Despite decades of international research highlighting how and why students and staff from historically marginalised groups are systematically disadvantaged in (higher) education, and policies and interventions seeking to address this, progress towards better representation, experiences, and outcomes has been excruciatingly slow. This is manifest in resilient awarding gaps between White and global majority students, an overrepresentation of White, middle class men in the professoriate, and exclusionary cultures within universities themselves. With the cuts and changes impacting our capacity to teach well, support students, administer our processes, and undertake research, these are troubling times.
Not just a UK problem
While the precise manifestations of this are specific to the UK, with its particular political history and a starkly hierarchical society and university system, these themes will be familiar to many. Worldwide increases in student populations over time presents governments with a conundrum around how to fund and steer this either directly or at a distance, and how they and universities themselves (are able to) resolve this varies widely. As elsewhere, these are intertwined with the impact of interrelated global conflicts, climate change, and economic disruptions, increasing inequality and political polarisation, the rise of the far right, and questions around the risks and affordances of Generative Artificial Intelligence. What a time to be alive.
To many stakeholders for a consensus?
Solutions are a question of perspective, and this is complicated through universities’ connection with virtually every social sphere. We educate and train a large proportion of our populations, particularly those who work in professions and who wield influence, and research virtually every aspect of our world (as well as beyond it).
This means that everyone – and everything, from a post-humanist stance – is a ‘stakeholder’ in higher education. Some have a consistent and focused interest in universities, in particular students and staff, but this extends to research funders, mission groups, think tanks, accreditors, student unions, academic publishers, and university rankers. Others may have a sustained or intermittent connection to what we do, ranging from local and national governments, schools, political parties, mainstream media, NGOs, professional bodies, employers, churches, suppliers, and financial institutions.
These constituencies have their own specific interests and priorities, some of which may operate in conflict, and possess varying degrees of leverage when it comes to being heard and effecting change. While the state looms large, it not unrestricted in its reach, and the distribution of agency and voice throughout higher education is uneven, influenced by formal and informal inherited practices, structures, and ways of thinking and doing. Students and staff want appropriate facilities and conditions for learning, living and working, but budgetary, space, and other constraints limit what is possible. They may have little influence individually but can collectively call for (or resist) change through feedback and committee structures, extending to their unions and even leading to nation-wide protests, such as those ongoing in Serbia.
Diverging interests and ideologies
Other examples can be seen through research funders’ imposition of thematic directions, often in response to what they perceive as the most pressing (or lucrative) topics, but their mandatory administrative procedures can impede the research they are seeking to support. A current issue is the need for many universities to recruit fee-paying international students but at the same time xenophobic immigration policy is making this increasingly difficult. Similarly, employers have long demanded work-ready graduates, but the world of work is changing, and labour markets can be unpredictable, such as the sudden rise in unemployment for architects after the 2008 economic crash. At a more fundamental level, clashes in underlying ideologies within and outside higher education promote or hinder change. While many – including me – would argue that our curricula, pedagogy, and practices need decolonising to broaden our knowledge and be more inclusive, others see this as a threat to cultural and disciplinary norms (and dominant groups’ advantages). This observation connects the seemingly disparate moves to stifle protests on university campuses in Australia, state attacks on equity in US higher education, and the bar on women progressing beyond primary education in Afghanistan, among others.
Where does this leave us?
Most of the ongoing debates around higher education relate to these tensions, particularly where there is a shift in the precarious balance between universities’ multiple purposes, values, and practices. Because of the diversity of groups in and around universities, where we are at a given time will never please all of them as they want different things, and someone’s interests are always being extended, retained, or denied, at the expense of others. In some ways these dynamics are what makes studying them so fascinating as we try to make sense of where we are, while being mindful of our histories, as we imagine – and try to shape – our future trajectories. It remains, however, enormously frustrating that we have the knowledge to improve universities, but progress is remains glacial, and at times, even operates in reverse.
Key Messages
Crisis is not hyperbole. UK universities are shrinking, shedding staff, and closing courses — and the institutions hit hardest are the most inclusive ones.
Policy is the problem. Treating education as a financial transaction and knowledge as a commodity drives inequity and erodes quality.
Progress on equity is agonisingly slow. Despite decades of research, awarding gaps, exclusionary cultures, and underrepresentation persist.
Everyone is a stakeholder — but not everyone has a voice. Power in higher education is unevenly distributed, and competing interests make change messy and contested.
We know what needs to happen. The evidence exists. What’s lacking is the political will and structural conditions to act on it.
ERC Keynote
At the Emerging Researchers Conference (ERC) 2026 in Tampere, Richard Budd will give the ERC Keynoteon “Making space for socially just academic practice”.
Richard Budd
School of Social Sciences at Lancaster University, UK
Richard Budd is a Lecturer in Higher Education in the School of Social Sciences at Lancaster University, UK. His research interests relate to conceptualising and investigating how different groups experience and negotiate studying at or working in universities. This incorporates relational and social justice questions around personal and professional identity, organisational cultures and practices, and the geographical and physical elements of university campuses. He is particularly interested in exploring how these questions compare on a domestic and international basis. Alongside and within this work, he is actively involved in moves to decolonise higher education and his own practice.
Other blog posts on similar topics:
