The business world can’t afford for our universities to fail

If the number of lucrative international students falls by two-thirds, as is predicted, the Conservative government’s failure to stem that flow will stand as a senseless sabotaging of a rare UK export success story, says James Moore

Forty per cent of England’s universities are expected to run budget deficits this year

What’s the collective noun for English universities? A campus? A faculty? A high-table? I only ask, as we may be about to see an entire mortarboard of them go bankrupt.

This week, a new report by the sector’s regulator painted a grim picture, warning that higher education has become over-reliant on overseas students to fill an increasingly large hole created by a slowdown in the intake.

As a result, the Office for Students (OfS) has warned that 40 per cent of England’s universities are expected to run budget deficits this year – a figure that could rise to 80 per cent if, as forecast, the number of international students drops by two-thirds.