Kent students condemn ‘callous’ Brussels campus closure

Brussels-based University of Kent students have said they have been left in the lurch by the university’s decision to suddenly close its satellite campus, a move they claimed was taken without any consultation.

In a statement a group of Brussels School of International Studies (BSIS) students said the process of closing the 25-year-old site had been “grossly mishandled” and that being told of the decision in a “cryptic” 30 March email was “callous”.

Summer Felsen, who is studying a master’s in international relations with conflict and security, told Times Higher Education she and fellow students had been “left in the dark”.

“This was a really big mistake,” she said, adding that she did not feel the university had considered any alternatives to the “drastic decision”.

In a statement Kent said it had taken the “difficult and regretful decision” to close the Brussels study centre in 2024 “after a series of extensive reviews and internal discussion”.

“In recent years we have been running it at an increasing cost and further recruitment and wider pressures mean this is sadly no longer sustainable for the university,” it added. The current Brussels cohort will be the university’s last, with future applicants offered “alternative study options” at Kent.

Ms Felsen said although current students will be allowed to finish their programmes, they have not been told who will be teaching the remaining classes.

“There [are] PhD students who have up to three years left on their research projects and they don’t know if they’re going to stay in Brussels, they don’t know who their supervisors are going to be, they don’t know if they’re going to be changed to Canterbury [where the university’s main campus in located], or if Canterbury even has the resources,” she added.

She said those contemplating a shift to the cathedral city in Kent were concerned the university had deeper financial issues. “This is just one component of probably a bigger financial disaster that’s going to come to Canterbury anyway,” she alleged. Many universities are facing financial pressures and, earlier this year, Kent staff were offered voluntary redundancy as the institution attempted to cut costs.

“We are facing a range of unprecedented financial challenges due to inflation and rising costs set against the static tuition fee level set nationally,” a Kent spokesman told THE when invited to respond to the fears of deeper financial issues, adding that living costs had hit application and dropout rates and that BSIS has been “run at cost for a number of years”.

Kent’s vice-chancellor Karen Cox has agreed to come to Brussels on 17 April to explain the decision but, in their statement, the student representatives said they were “not assured” that the visit “will necessarily take place, nor that it will provide any clear answers to our urgent questions”, claiming that the university had promised previous Brussels visits that did not materialise. The university spokesman confirmed that Professor Cox and senior colleagues would be travelling to Brussels for the planned meeting.

Kent, which bills itself as “the UK’s European university”, closed similar centres in Athens and Rome, but retains one in Paris. The spokesman said it was exploring other ways of broadening its work on the continent, such as working with other universities.

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com