UNIVERSITY bosses are refusing to negotiate during massive further education strikes nationwide despite sitting on more than enough cash to resolve the damaging dispute, unions charged today. 

The increasingly marketised sector generated more money than ever last year but staff expenditure hit rock bottom, new analysis from the University and College Union (UCU) reveals.

The union, which examined data from 147 institutions, said that the mammoth surplus generated could have raised staff wages by 10 per cent with “hundreds of millions to spare.”