Next, immigration policy can’t be driven by the demands of the universities, any more than it can be driven by any other industry. Lots of foreign students might be good for higher education, just as cheap workers are great for the food delivery apps or the building trade, but it also imposes strains on healthcare, housing costs and transport infrastructure.
As for bailouts, the blunt truth is this: with taxes already at a 70-year-high, with total state debt close to 100pc of GDP and a number of pensioners having their winter fuel allowances cut, there are far better uses for whatever money might be available than keeping a few universities afloat.
The harsh truth is that universities expanded too quickly, took on too many students, built too many extra facilities and paid their administrators too much. If the vice-chancellors presiding over the whole sorry mess wanted a genuine solution, perhaps they should consult their economics departments.
A few should be allowed to go bust, freeing up resources of land, buildings, capital and people that could be redeployed easily in private industry, and would contribute far more to the growth of the economy.
Others should focus on vocational training, much as the old polytechnics that were later turned into universities were meant to. After all, in areas such as construction, the country is desperate for skilled workers, especially if we ever manage to reform our deranged planning laws, and the same is true of many other trades.
Other universities should simply downsize, until they can make ends meet. If a hall of residence has to be turned into flats, or a lecture room into office space for small businesses, that would hardly be the end of the world.
Very quickly, supply and demand would match again, just as the textbooks in any university library would tell you. As businesses, many of them don’t work anymore. They are dragging themselves down, and the country with them – and it is time the special pleading was brought to an end.