This is essential reading, but it isn't news.

In 2013, @BobEaglestone and @kovesi1 called it.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/english-why-the-discipline-may-not-be-too-big-to-fail/2008473.article

I was working on employability at the time and was worried about what the changes to GCSE would do when coupled with the cap lifting. https://twitter.com/USSbriefs/status/1249646223998570503

The following year, I published 'Employability and the English degree'. The essay notes that by then it was even more clear that the subject was in trouble, and that some departments were going to be major losers. https://www.academia.edu/11088502/_Employability_and_the_English_Degree_in_English_Studies_The_State_of_the_Discipline_Past_Present_and_Future_eds_Niall_Gildea_Helena_Goodwyn_Megan_Kitching_and_Helen_Tyson_London_Palgrave_Pivot_2014_pp._83-97._ISBN_9781137478047

Our solution was a radically different curriculum, placing employability at the heart of the entire English degree. The essay has the details if you're interested.

We posted four consecutive years of 100% NSS overall satisfaction 2013-17.

Our students were in the bottom 5% nationally for prior attainment, but posted average or better salary and employment stats. Did it make a difference? To those students, yes.

To recruitment? No. Cumbria lost 63% of its students over five years, and in 2017 cut staff by 45%.

I was one of them.

Whilst the cap coming off has led to massive 'redistribution' of students between institutions, it isn't the only reason the discipline is in trouble at university level.

Fewer take English A level. Fewer taking it go on to university study.

I still think it's worth asking whether the best way forward is to replicate A level at degree level.

A university English centred upon taking transferable skills seriously might look a bit more like the kind of thing I described in the Higher in 2015. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/mock-job-applications-should-they-be-part-of-a-university-degree/2019727.article

We can't do anything as a discipline about the distribution of student numbers. But we could have a different university English. Break the link to an A level fewer people are doing and fewer still think will lead anywhere than was the case ten years ago.

If you work somewhere with low entry grades or with WP mission, as I did, you have to respect those who want their degree to lead somewhere.

TL:DR - one way to increase student numbers could be: embrace instrumental learning. Don't assume those skills transfer themselves.