Source By Murray Hunter & Geoffrey Williams

BANGKOK, Thailand: Many British legacy universities are now in a rapid decline due to misreading structural developments in the higher education environment, changes in management conceptions of their institutional role in education and repeated poor decision-making at the most senior levels. One such example is Nottingham University.

The University of Nottingham traces its origins to an adult education school founded in 1798 and Cambridge University Extension Lectures that began in Nottingham in 1873. The institution’s formal foundation is dated to 1881 with the establishment of University College Nottingham, which prepared students for University of London examinations.

An anonymous £10,000 donation in 1875 enabled permanent operations, leading to the laying of the foundation stone in 1877 by Prime Minister William Gladstone, whose father was a wealthy slave owner. The official opening of its neo-Gothic building on Shakespeare Street was inaugurated by Prince Leopold in 1881. Early departments in literature, physics, chemistry and natural sciences expanded rapidly to include engineering, classics, French, education and others. The college remained tied to the city until gaining greater independence through a royal charter in 1903.

Significant growth followed, including a move in the 1920s to the new University Park campus on land donated by local businessman Sir Jesse Boot (Lord Trent), and the Trent Building opened by King George V in 1928. High-profile visitors such as Einstein, H.G. Wells and Gandhi spoke there during this era. After rejecting a federal East Midlands university proposal, University College Nottingham received its own royal charter in 1948, becoming the University of Nottingham with degree-awarding powers.

Subsequent developments included the merger with the School of Agriculture, the UK’s first new 20th-century medical school in 1970, the opening of Jubilee Campus, purchase of the King’s Meadow campus and major expansion into international campuses in Malaysia and China. In recent years the university has faced controversies including the 2008 “Nottingham Two” Islamic terrorism case and a 2021 chaplain appointment which raised concerns about views on abortion and assisted suicide. The University’s achievements include an Athena SWAN Gold Award in 2023 for gender equality.

However, by 2025–2026 Nottingham University announced major financial pressures, leading to the planned suspension of 16 courses, which included all modern languages and music, where over 600 job cuts through redundancies.

Over the last 45 years, the British government have cut around 25 percent funding to public universities. These cuts had to be covered through increasing education fees where rises were restricted for British citizens. Hence, many British universities like Nottingham faced with low domestic birth rates in the UK source international students to increase revenue.

While this move raised university revenues it also meant that teaching standards had to be reduced to cater for students whose English was a second language. Over the last 3 decades, Nottingham University was forced to go through a metamorphous, where education in most faculties was turned into ‘factory’ like teaching, with pastoral care and responsibility on the part of educators reduced. Many tenured people were replaced with contract staff when they retired.

Over the past two decades the University made substantial capital investments to develop and expand its multi-campus model. This includes acquiring and refurbishing the King’s Meadow Campus in 2005 on a former television studio site and more recently purchasing the 3.75-hectare Castle Meadow Campus below Nottingham Castle in 2021 for £37.5 million, followed by over £40 million in refurbishment costs to prepare it for opening from 2023.

The university also invested heavily in its international campuses, relocating the Malaysia campus to a purpose-built 101-acre (41 ha) site in Semenyih in 2005 and establishing a full campus in Ningbo, China in 2004–2006, complete with a replica of the iconic Trent Building. These developments, alongside ongoing maintenance of the large Sutton Bonington agricultural and veterinary campus (over 221 hectares plus additional farm sites), the Jubilee Campus opened in 1999 and major facilities such as the David Ross Sports Village, significantly increased the university’s fixed assets and operational footprint.

However, many of these investments have since contributed to financial strain, with the 2024/25 accounts recording a £74.8 million impairment on the Castle Meadow and King’s Meadow campuses amid plans to sell both sites.

Consequently, the University of Nottingham reported a significantly weakened financial position in 2024/25. The Group recorded a deficit of £76.8 million, compared to a £220.7 million surplus the previous year, while the University alone posted a deficit of £71.5 million (vs a £220.1 million surplus in 2023/24). Total Group income rose modestly to £863.1 million, but expenditure surged to £947.4 million, largely due to a £74.8 million impairment on the revaluation of the Castle Meadow and King’s Meadow campuses and £11.3 million in restructuring costs.

On an adjusted basis excluding pension changes and one-off gains/losses, the Group recorded an underlying deficit of £85.3 million. However, Vice-Chancellor Jane Norman stated that the university moved from an underlying deficit of £3.2 million in 2024 to a small underlying surplus of £0.8 million in 2025.

Tuition fees remain the largest income source at £453.1 million, followed by research grants (£140.4 million), funding body grants (£118.1 million), and other operating income (£145 million). Endowments stand at £82.5 million, while total net assets declined to £761 million (Group) and £713.9 million (University alone).

Overall, the university is under considerable financial pressure, reflected in planned campus sales, course closures and significant staff redundancies, despite claims of a marginally improved underlying operating performance.

Nottingham Malaysia

The Nottingham Malaysia campus was the first British university franchise campus in Malaysia established through an invitation from the then minister of education and Nottingham graduate, Najib Razak, to establish an overseas campus in partnership between arms manufacturer Boustead Holdings Berhad and YTL Corporation Berhad. Najib was later convicted of unrelated corruption charges and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment.

A major driver of the decision was the impact of the Asian Financial Crisis and a misplaced prediction that the decline in overseas students could be mitigated by building bricks-and-mortar operations in one of the major markets. However, the Malaysian market situation was misread, as the federal government had opened at least 8 new universities in the early 2000s which soaked up much local demand.

After three years of planning the Nottingham franchise began with only 89 students in September 2000 in Kuala Lumpur and in 2005, relocated to a virtually unpopulated campus in Semenyih 40 miles away in a plantation owned by Boustead. This was a very unattractive site for studying, particularly from the Chinese market, where students expected to be domiciled in urban areas.

Under its previous CEO, Graham Kendall, Boustead had attempted to sell the Nottingham franchise in 2021 for a reported sum of RM137 million, less than it had invested over more than two decades of ownership. The sale was withdrawn in 2022.

Since then, the stability of the Nottingham franchise in Malaysia has been repeatedly called into question. Earlier this year it was revealed that the Malaysia operations is deeply in debt. The UK university accounts stated that the amount owed to them by the Malaysian campus stood at £7.6 million (about RM40.1 million) as of July 2025, up from £5.6 million (about RM29.3 million) the year before.

In an astonishing attempt to defend itself the university issued a statement denying that it was about to close down.

The financial difficulties of the Malaysian campus arise in part from a 22% decline in students from 2021, when they reported around 5,200 students to only 4,064 students in 2024. Income to the UK campus decreased sharply to £1.8 million (RM9.5 million) recorded in 2024 from just over £2.8 million (about RM14.8 million) in 2022. Nottingham fell victim to the rapid rise in the number of new higher education institutions being set up in China to absorb local student demand.

With the Nottingham UK campus itself struggling with survival following the announcement that the university will run out of money by 2031 putting 2,700 jobs at risk and more than 600 employees are already expected to be terminated in the next three years unions have started strike action and a marking boycott which could stop students from graduating. This will also impact students in Malaysia if dual marking schemes hit a choke-point in the UK.

In addition, the shockwave from recent announcement that the British government has blocked ‘UK degrees’ from the Newcastle medical campus in Malaysia has rippled through the other UK franchise campuses. In a recent email to students, David FitzPatrick, CEO of the Nottingham Malaysia franchise said, “We continue to operate with stability, invest in your education and campus experience, and deliver the high-quality Nottingham degree you enrolled to receive.”

When asked whether this was convincing a recent graduate replied, “Nope but as long as my Malaysian employers are convinced … it’s a different story overseas.”

A major factor in the decline of Nottingham University has been the decay of the ‘deep learning and education culture’ with a business culture where students have become a commodity rather than a learning cohort. Not just students have fallen victims to this culture. Nottingham has failed to protect its staff’s financial security, through not honouring work contracts to geographical escape clauses. Nottingham staff relocated from the UK to Malaysia found themselves destitute from the management’s reckless employment contract approach. Several ongoing labour disputes with local and overseas staff are still ongoing.

Like many UK institutions, Nottingham faces pressure from rising Asian universities and challenges in funding and competition. Nottingham currently remains a respected research-intensive university with strong real-world outcomes. However, its current financial situation may weaken future outreach in Asia, leading to potential closure in Malaysia.

The Nottingham case provides an object lesson for other universities from the UK and elsewhere who may be considering or even undergoing international expansion. Overseas markets may not yield the fruits expected at their inception and troubles in the home campuses as well as policy changes can damage perceptions and stakeholder approvals. This impacts financial stability which ultimately places franchise campus at risk, without any guarantee of support from any source.