University Challenge: Five universities have doubled their borrowings

University Challenge. Five universities have doubled their borrowings in the last academic year.

Southampton, UCL, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt and Imperial (the last being the biggest borrower with GBP470M loans). Traditionally South East Asian and Far Eastern campuses (and more recently Middle Eastern) help fund home campuses. The University of Sheffield has a South East Asian Office in Damansara Heights, Kuala Lumpur. And as you know, Damansara is a posh area, the Beverly Hills or Kensington of KL. Sheffield has a long established relationship with Malaysia and the first known Malaysian graduated from Sheffield in 1955.

Reading University invested GBP21M in its Malaysian campus rising to GBP70M by 2021 but its debt is currently GBP141M. Nottingham in Malaysia and China and Liverpool in China have closed down. UCL will shut its Qatar campus in 2020 and its Adelaide campus shut 2 years ago.

The only music to my ears is the news that tuition fees may drop from GBP9250 to 6500 post-Brexit.