Universities are taking a lot of flak at the moment, but they really had very little choice once the government refused a financial support package and made the only form of support available to universities (accelerated tuition loan payments) contingent on strong recruitment 1/

Not only that but they came up with such a draconian, punitive restructuring regime for those who did get into financial difficulties that everyone was incentivised to to try to return to “normal as possible” 2/

Not only that, but both the OfS and the OIA were signalling that they expected delivery to be as close to normal as possible, almost ignoring the very real impact and constraints of public health measures 3/

Added to that all the political guff about the need to get back to normal, civic duty etc. There was never really a space for a discussion about what was really feasible 4/

There were other options here but they required co-ordination and flexibility across the sector (no institution could afford to go it alone) and leadership at that level, which is lacking in a “managed market” unless it comes from those framing the terms of the market.

My worry is what these (in my view unjustified) attacks on universities will mean in the longer term. Mud sticks.