Universities ask for funding help as freshers pack for term

“We can choose to act to ensure our universities thrive or we can allow them to slide into decline,” she will say.

“For me, the latter path would be unconscionable.”

Universities UK, which has 141 members, would soon lay out proposals for a “reset” of the sector, including “a rebalancing of responsibility for funding in England to recognise the significant benefits to the Treasury generated by graduates”, Dame Sally added.

Skills Minister Baroness Jacqui Smith told the conference on Wednesday: “We are carefully considering all options to deliver a more robust higher-education sector.

“We’re working on it now – but this isn’t something that’s going to happen overnight.”

A key consideration was how to put universities in a “sustainable financial position” in a way that “doesn’t [place] on to the state the whole responsibility for funding of our higher-education system”, Lady Smith said.

“You cannot have independence and then also expect there to be a wholly state-funded system,” she added.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has previously said universities were expected to “manage their budgets”.

University and College Union general secretary Jo Grady, who has called for bailouts for struggling institutions, said “increased public funding will be necessary”.

But she added: “University leaders cannot be handed blank cheques: they must use public money to invest in their own workforce.”