by Rob Cuthbert
SRHE News is glad to bring you the Augur Report, its prognostications for 2025, based on extensive research into the works of Nostradamus, Old Moore’s Almanac and Mystic Meg.
January
- Donald Trump resumes the US Presidency and announces that free speech in HE requires him to ban the use of the words Diversity, Equality and Inclusion in US HE. Elon Musk argues that this should also be applied in the UK.
- UUK launches another major campaign to point out that most universities really are in serious financial trouble.
- UCEA points out the difficulty of affording any staff salary increases at all in the present climate.
- Vice-chancellors point out that the financial difficulties facing their institutions would not be significantly alleviated if they took a 50% cut in salary, and competitive salaries are essential to enable Britain’s world class universities to recruit and retain the best leaders. Especially when it has become so difficult to recruit staff.
- The OfS announces a concordat with Russian higher education to support a major increase in its use of AI, using Russian cyber experts. The first expansion of AI will be in the approval of new university titles: the new AI Department will be known as the Nomenklatura Department. The criteria remain unchanged: the OfS “will consult on a provider’s proposed new name and assess the extent to which the proposed name is confusing or misleading”.
- The OfS is already the investigating authority, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner for all HE infractions, and now seeks the power to exile to Siberia any academics complicit in breaching Condition of Registration B2. Government agrees in the interests of reducing net migration.
February
- After the disappointing application figures for 2025 entry, UCAS launches a major advertising campaign to point out that the increase in undergraduate fees won’t make any difference to most student debt repayments.
- UUK launches a new campaign to point out that the increase in undergraduate fees won’t make any difference to the financial troubles in most universities.
- Government announces that even after all those new teachers are appointed there might be a bit left over for HE from the proceeds of VAT on private school fees. Teacher educators point out that after yet another year of missed targets in teacher training there is no-one qualified to apply for the new jobs in schools.
- OfS approves a name change from Anglia Ruskin University to the University of Cambridge(shire).
March
- The OfS approves a name change from Oxford Brookes University to University of Oxford(shire).
- UUK relaunches its campaign: “Most universities really are in deep financial trouble, honest.”
- Government says there might still be something left for HE from VAT on school fees, and Elon Musk might have a point.
- The interim temporary Archbishop of Canterbury says she will renounce the power of the Archbishop to award degrees.
April
- The OfS approves a name change from University of the West of England to the Greater Bristol University.
- The OfS announces a major increase in the use of AI, to extend to all interventions on quality/standards/ breach of conditions of registration. The OfS Nomenklatura Department has been renamed, partly because no-one remembers the Soviet Union any more, and also because it was too likely to cause confusion with the rest of the OfS, who are already party-appointed bureaucrats. The suggested new name, the Behan Bots – conscripted to work for low pay, completely in the dark – is rejected because nobody remembers the Second World War any more and in any case it was too likely to cause confusion with existing university staff. OfS CEO Susan Lapworth says the new Department will now be known as the Laptops.
- The OfS announces a concordat with Chinese higher education which will start with a new student recruitment campaign in the North East: “Huawei the lads”.
May
- The OfS approves a name change from Coventry University to Warwick(shire) University.
- Government says sorry – even though they couldn’t appoint any new teachers there was nothing left from VAT on school fees because they diverted it to fill the £22billion hole in the public finances. It issues guidance on the use of language in HE, known as the Musk Directive.
- UUK’s Taskforce on Efficiency and Transformation in Higher Education announces that it is in advanced talks with Government about restructuring the HE sector in England. Luckily the Taskforce chair is a lawyer specialising in mergers and acquisitions.
June
- The OfS approves a name change from Birmingham City University to the Greater Birmingham University
- GuildHE issues a reminder that it has no formal connection with the Church of England or any other faiths but remains committed to whatever you are allowed to call diversity, equity and inclusion since the Musk Directive.
- Canterbury Christ Church University is renamed University of Kent Two. OfS says this is unlikely to cause confusion among international students, especially since Kent is so near to Paris.
- Bishop Grosseteste University becomes the University of Lincoln Two But We Were Here First. Leeds Beckett, Northumbria, Sheffield Hallam, Greater Birmingham and Greater Bristol consider name changes.
- UUK issues a media release saying “we did warn you” as 30% of universities merge or close. OfS says everything will be OK, because all universities are required to have plans for an orderly exit from the market. Wimbledon fortnight begins and UCAS says “you cannot be serious”.
July
- OfS approves a name change for Liverpool John Moores to Liverpools University.
- The BBC is forced to suspend filming of the new series of University Challenge after 30% of universities appearing have merged, have new names or have announced their intention to close.
August
- UCAS announces that the 30% reduction in available university places has luckily been matched by an equivalent fall in the number of applicants.
- Government announces its three priorities for HE – reduction, reduction, reduction – will apply particularly to the numbers of students from all disadvantaged groups.
September
- The OfS approves its own name change from the Office for Students to the Office with No Students on the Board (ONO).
October
- Government announces its new higher education policy, with the establishment of a new corporation to take over all the universities not in a position to complain, provisionally titled the Great British University. ONO says this is unlikely to cause confusion, but governments in Wales and Scotland say they are confused since all the universities in the GBU are in England. The Northern Ireland Assembly say they’re glad it wasn’t the Great UK University, or they would have been confused. The new HE policy includes a
pledge/mission/milestone promising net zero admissions by 2030, or maybe 2035. - The last Bishop to leave the Church of England is asked to remember to switch off all the lights to comply with its Net Zero Bishops pledge.
November
- The Greater London Non-University College of Monkey Business publishes its annual Report and Accounts: income £925,000; expenditure £925,000, all annual salary for the principal. It recruited 100 students but they all left at the end of the year without leaving forwarding addresses. Having no students at all on its Board it claims to be completely aligned with the regulator.
December
- ONO announces it has breached its own conditions of registration and has removed itself from the Register of Approved Regulators. Dusting down a forgotten part of the Higher Education and Research Act (2017) it issues an urgent appeal – Quick, Anyone? Anyone! – for a new designated quality body to replace itself, which becomes known as the QAA appeal.
- A High Court judgment finds that publishers have mis-sold the copyright of academics to multinational AI corporations and orders financial compensation, known as Publishers Pay Instead (PPI). Publishers set aside £100billion.
- Universities launch a counter claim, asserting their ownership of, or failing that a pretty strong interest in, copyright of academics in their employ, and sue to recover the costs of journal subscriptions and transitional agreements. Publishers set aside a further £100billion.
- Multinational AI corporation share prices, now quoted only in bitcoin, continue to rise.
- The new Wallace and Gromit film, Academic Free-Don, is set in a university where the inmates are planning a mass escape. When they realise that their new zero-hours contracts allow them to leave at any time, they apply for exile to Siberia, where they expect better pay and conditions of employment.
- The theme for the 2026 SRHE Conference is announced: “Where do we go from here?”
SRHE News is a not-for-prophet enterprise. No octopuses were harmed in the making of this editorial.
SRHE News Editor Rob Cuthbert is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Management, University of the West of England and Joint Managing Partner, Practical Academics rob.cuthbert@btinternet.com. Twitter @RobCuthbert