This is all very curious. Might be wrong (again!) but it seems likely to me it's a something and nothing story.

It's clear that there will be controls of recruiting, if only to stop Russell Group Unis cannibalising the rest of the HE sector. 1/ https://twitter.com/WalesOnline/status/1266434179195187203

In this context it's easy to imagine a DfE official coming up with a plan to stop (as they would see it) Welsh universities 'taking advantage'. And of course, the default 'we propose, you dispose' London attitude means that there's no consolation... in 2/

Would be very surprised if there's an attempt to 'stop English students coming to Wales'. After all, cui bono? Much easier to see how it hurts the Johnson government politically, given location of Welsh Tory MPs (inc. Sec of State!)

What's the up-side? 3/

That said, the extent of the shock and alarm that this story is generating across the HE sector in Wales is hard to overstate. So let's see.

One thing that - perhaps naïvely - I hope that this triggers is the long needed and long delayed conversation about Welsh Universities 4/

In short: what are they for?

Politicians (and indeed, unis themselves) have avoided this fundamental question, focusing instead on student finance to the exclusion of pretty much all else. If you doubt that, as ever just follow the money! 5/

As a country, we not only merrily export our brightest and best students, mostly never to return. We've also abandoned fate of these key anchor institutions - embedded like no other across Wales - to the market.

To their and our enormous detriment... 6/

COVID-19 is exposing their vulnerability as well as the fact that the Welsh government has, in effect, given away many of its policy levers 7/ https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/2394684-welsh-universities-under-serious-threat-as-a-result-of-the-covid-19-crisis,-report-finds

Brexit is also going to be brutal for Welsh universities.

And now, the panic over *potential* restrictions on the number of English students coming to Wales, is exposing just how vulnerable we are in this regard as well 8/

Surely this is - at last - the time to have the national conversation about what we want Welsh Universities to do for society (for their localities, for Wales, for these islands and for the world)?

Let's start there! 9/

Not with a discussion of mergers (which is, I believe, a way of avoiding the key issues) or student finance (the exclusive concern with which has proven to be so disastrous), but rather with asking ourselves:

what are Welsh Universities for? /FIN