[peoplewindow]

Er is it a questionable scenario? UK universities all have very similar businesses, customer bases, staff unionisation levels and risk profiles. It's quite imaginable that if there was a sudden drop in the number of students attending university they might all get in dire straits simultaneously.

[pjc50]

They have very different financial reserves, especially the Russell Group ones, and this also presumes that the government would let its entire tertiary education system collapse without intervening.

[peoplewindow]

Well, the intervention is to change the pensions, surely. And the goal is to intervene before a collapse occurs rather than afterwards.

If the argument is "we don't need to change the university pension scheme because when they go bankrupt the government will bail them out", I suppose that should be made directly.