Although Cardiff, like many other universities, may hold significant financial reserves, that is unlikely to mean it us sitting on large amounts of cash ready to be spent immediately, according to Nicholas Barr, professor of public economics at London School of Economics.

Instead, the “sensible thing” for universities to do would be to have invested much of their reserves “in buildings, or investment”, he said.

“I’m not saying that there isn’t some possibility for using some of the reserves, but I think the argument that there’s a pot of £500m that can just be used to plug the gap – I’m sure it’s a lot more complicated than that,” said Prof Barr.

“Universities have only limited ability to draw income from their capital assets.

“My view is, if they’re not investing their capital assets for the long term, if they’re just sitting on pots of money… then they’re not using their assets very well.”