UK Universities to give away football tickets, iPads, & Masters Degrees

UK Universities are adopting aggressive marketing strategies to compete in the Global Higher Education supermarket according to today’s Sunday Times.

Students offered ‘bogof’ university degrees

The gleaming spires of academia have bought into that mainstay of supermarkets, the bogof (buy one, get one free) deal.Universities are offering bogof degree courses, promising top-flight A-level

www.thetimes.co.uk

As well as offering free masters, iPads, and Premier League Football tickets, Universities are also incentivising overseas students to recruit their spouses and siblings.

The Sunday Times editorial wonders how long before students at Oxford are offered action figures of Cecil Rhodes and, in the case of St Andrews, the chance to marry a member of the royal family.

It claims that “Universities are now so desperate for custom they could teach supermarkets a thing or two about sales.”

Surely it would be more appropriate to compare universities with banking cartels.

iPads and Premier League tickets make for great teasers but — after recent Brexit downgrades — how long before the universities start also offering haircuts?