One of the key killing factors is the sheer waiting time on a grant. It used to take a matter of weeks and months to apply for a grant and wait for a result on whether you got it.

Now, we're talking on the order of months to a year. Imaging telling a talented grad student who wants to work with you to wait a year to secure them a place.

This prompts a lot of researchers to pre-emptively apply for anything and everything at all times, increasing the needless competition and slowing down the vetting process immensely.

The UK student loan book regularly changes hands on the secondaries market at half of face value. Make of that what you will. Draw whatever conclusions you might about the market value of some of the education provided.

I support anyone's wish to gain an education, including the study of esoteric subjects if that is what interests them. However many young people have been mis-sold an education in the belief that it would result in a well paying job. Of course the young are the easiest people of all upon which to perpetrate such a scam. There are very few with a film studies degree, who manage to secure a job as film director. About 500 people every year study golf course management. We have about 2500 golf courses.

Its also refusal of the middle eastern states to fund studying abroad out of fear of radicalization in the uk. You know you are in trouble when qatar puts you on a watchlist..

Some British universities are dying.

They expanded university capacity more than was sustainable. Now it'll retract.

It's a crisis for the people involved, but not for society as a whole.

the university system(s) as it is can't die soon enough

The article spends some lines blaming this on private capital but only hand waves and on it. I would expect something more concrete.

University systems worldwide will need to consolidate and combine in order to preserve themselves, their rich collections and institutions, if they want to survive, because populations are plummeting globally.

They're dying because nobody cares about them. If nobody cares about them, why would anybody care that they're dying?