Cardiff University announces ‘cruel’ staff and subject reductions amid financial crisis

Cardiff University, the largest university in Wales, has declared their plans to get rid of 400 academic staff, which is almost 10% of its employees. Additionally, it plans to cut subjects such as nursing, music, modern languages, ancient history, and religion and theology.

Due to the university’s financial status, Vice-Chancellor Professor Wendy Larner said: “It is no longer an option for us to continue as we are.”

According to him, the university had an operating deficit of £31.2 million in 2023-24 and its international student applications were “plummeting.” If it carries on in this manner, Cardiff University will “run out of cash in four years.”

Some believe that these drastic measures could have been avoided if the university had acted faster. An academic, who wished to stay anonymous, said: “The university management has kept pretending everything was OK […]. Anyone knows that in a crisis you have to act early to avoid cutting too deeply. They’ve ducked that. Now they’ve gone into panic mode.”

Talks of ceasing some programmes within certain departments including nursing, when Wales is short of 2000 nurses, is unthinkable

Cefin Campbell , Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson for education

Additionally, the University and College Union labelled the reductions as “cruel”, and claimed they would damage students and teachers both at the University and all over the country.

Concerns have especially been expressed over the cut of nursing courses. Cefin Campbell , Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson for education, said: “Talks of ceasing some programmes within certain departments including nursing, when Wales is short of 2000 nurses, is unthinkable.” She goes on to state that this will impact not just Cardiff, but all of Wales for generations to come.

Other suggested changes to the University have included joining “complementary” disciplines together through school mergers. This could involve the creation of the school of natural sciences, which would entail merging chemistry, physics, and Earth sciences.

The University declared that there will be a consultation period for the next 90 days and in June, final plans are expected to be published.

Notably, Cardiff University is not the only one to make cuts. On Tuesday 28 January, Durham University also announced that, in order to reduce costs by £10m, it plans to cut around 200 members of staff – although these will not be the University’s academics.