Are public-private partnerships becoming part of the answer to the UK university financial crisis?

Are public-private partnerships becoming part of the answer to the UK university financial crisis?

When we asked in University World News earlier this year whether a public-private model could help rescue UK higher education, the suggestion was deliberately provocative. The immediate context was the financial collapse at the University of Dundee, where the Scottish Government ultimately committed up to £62 million of additional funding to stabilise the institution.

We asked whether taxpayer-funded rescue was really the only option. Could private capital have been brought alongside public investment? Could Dundee, for example, establish a new campus in Edinburgh, financed partly by private investment and focused on international and postgraduate markets, creating an additional revenue stream while potentially allowing taxpayers eventually to recover some of the money committed to rescuing the university?

At the time, this probably sounded radical. Developments over the past few weeks suggest it may no longer be quite so radical.