There is so much truth here. If the university I work at were to shut down, the local area would have an immediate population loss of 15k. That’s 15k less people spending money on the high street. 15k less people paying rent. 15k less people buying take out. The knock on effects would be huge.
And thats only the student population. The staff would be gone as well, along with the money they spend. That’s probably another 6k+ people suddenly out of work. That’s 6k people *in one town* who will be looking for work in a town that is seeing a massive economic crash.
Local businesses will be seeing a massive loss of income due to the loss of 15k customers. They will be looking at redundancies themselves. They won’t be hiring. Towns with universities are built around them. If you allow the university to fail, the future of that town is grim.