BY HANK REICHMAN
Two articles from today’s (London) Times Higher Education discuss how higher education systems in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia, which have embraced privatization and corporatization, and systems in continental Europe, which have largely retained the public funding model, are faring in the face of the challenges posed by the fiscal implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. The contrast is revealing, to say the least.
First, let’s turn to “Pandemic throws spotlight on HE employment practices,” by Simon Baker, John Ross, and Paul Basken, which treats the English-speaking systems. Here are some excerpts:
The Covid-19 pandemic is raising fundamental questions about the way universities are funded and staffed in countries with more marketised higher education systems, expert opinion suggests, as institutions desperately seek to shore up their finances.
It comes as evidence grows that staff on short-term and casual contracts are bearing the brunt of attempts by institutions in countries such as the UK, the US and Australia to make cost savings in the face of predictions of a major loss of fee income from international students.
In Australia, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) estimates that the equivalent of 20,000 full-time university jobs, and up to 30,000 on a headcount basis, are jeopardised by the crisis.
New South Wales division secretary Michael Thomson said people in casual and fixed-term employment would bear the brunt of the job losses, with the toll reaching thousands at some institutions. . . .
In the UK, there have also been concerns about savings being focused around casual staff and fixed-term contracts, with the prospects for early career researchers particularly highlighted.
Jo Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union, said universities in the country were “powered” by many staff who did not have “proper job security.”
“The crisis has exposed how that system is failing, and we need a fundamental review of the endemic casualisation that props up our sector,” she added.
In the US, independent audits of actions taken by institutions to shore up finances have suggested that cuts to temporary staff are far more common than permanent layoffs, and that general staff are more heavily affected than teaching faculty.
Official federal employment figures, which capture only a portion of those moves, show that US colleges and universities had about 20,000 fewer staff at the end of March than they had at the same time last year, falling to their lowest levels in at least two decades.
Now, let’s turn to “European universities spared coronavirus cuts − for now,” by David Matthews. Here’s some of what we find there:
Continental European universities have been largely spared budget cuts and redundancies amid the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, in what some see as a quiet vindication of a financial model that avoids reliance on student tuition fees and endowment income.
There are no reported redundancies planned in Germany, unions say, while Dutch academics have been awarded a 3 per cent pay rise, higher than last year, in recognition of the upheaval caused by the switch to online teaching.
This contrasts with the US, the UK and Australia, where some universities face catastrophic losses of income and layoffs because of the shutdown of the lucrative international student business and the stock market collapse. . . .
German universities do not charge tuition fees, even to international students, reflecting a desire to attract workers, to build soft power and to assuage an anti-fees political sentiment. The exception is the southern state of Baden-Württemberg, which charges €1,500 (£1,348) per semester to students from outside the European Union.
Institutions might suffer a small hit to their budgets if overall student numbers decline, because of how state funding formulas work, “but not a financial impact that would mean you have to change your plans”, explained Frank Ziegele, director of Germany’s Centre for Higher Education.
In the wake of the pandemic’s devastating impact on global student flows, German advocates of fee-free higher education felt “confirmed” in their eschewal of this income stream, he added.
Dutch universities have edged towards the UK-US university model, attracting an increasing number of international students by offering a growing range of English-language courses.
But compared with the UK, dependence remains limited. Dutch universities do charge students from outside the European Economic Area (EEA), and Switzerland charges up to €15,000 a year at bachelor’s level; but so far, these fee-paying students constitute just three out of every 100. In the UK, by contrast, 14 of every 100 are higher-paying students from outside Europe.
So far, campaigners against staff cuts are not aware of any redundancies in the Netherlands because of the pandemic. “It will not have a direct effect on higher education funding in the short and medium term,” said Marijtje Jongsma, an associate professor at Radboud University and a member of the campaigning group WOinactie. “But if student numbers drop, it will have consequences on staff.” . . .
Meanwhile, in France, universities host close to 350,000 international students, and in 2018 the government launched a drive to attract half a million by 2027.
However, fees are minimal for students from the EEA, and although non-European students normally pay €2,770 a year for a bachelor’s course, there are numerous waivers.
“France has not and will not be as radically hit as the UK, the US and Australia, where in recent decades we have witnessed an aggressive marketing logic based on fee-paying international students,” said Juliette Torabian, an international higher education expert.
The country “still benefits from an established public good approach to universities”, although since 2007 “the system has also been steered towards fee payment and performance funding”, she said.
The stories speak for themselves. I was particularly struck by the revelation that on May 11 “Dutch universities and unions agreed to a 3 per cent pay rise for employees, an increase on last year’s 2 per cent. Universities and unions said the pay rise expressed ‘appreciation for the efforts and commitment of our employees’ during the pandemic.” Just yesterday I received a message from my own union, the AAUP-affiliated California Faculty Association (CFA), that the union and university management had agreed that the faculty contract, set to expire on June 30, would be extended for a year, allowing more time for the two sides to bargain as the crisis unfolds. There will, however, be no salary increases for 2020-21. That CFA correctly sees this as a victory, maintaining previous hard-fought gains in exchange for a salary freeze, stands in stark contrast to the situation of our Dutch colleagues.
Still, THE reports, “although continental European universities appear to have been spared an immediate hit, there are fears that the huge debts taken on by states to weather the pandemic could lead to funding cutbacks in the medium term.” “About 40 per cent of our academic staff are on temporary contracts,” one Dutch scholar warned. “I fear this group is most at risk. This might have pretty negative consequences for early career scientists, who are already struggling.” And in Germany “temporarily employed lecturers far outnumber secure professors.”
Nonetheless, at this moment I’d opt in a flash for the European situation over that in the English-speaking marketized institutions. Isn’t it long past time that we step back from the high tuition/casual labor model that was already wreaking havoc before the virus hit us?
