Probably a combination greengage22. I have a couple of friends who work there. Things got close to the end after 911; the University was worried about the possible negative publicity associated with training overseas students (they used to have the Emirates contract as well as BA’s).
The only other factor was probably the scandal associated with their Delta course. I may have the detail wrong, but the contract was to train a small number of “minorities” students for Delta as a defence against recruitment discrimination cases. One or more of the students made allegations of discrimination against a number of staff, including the Dean and the Head of Training. You can imagine in a PC environment how difficult it would be to defend against such allegations. I don’t think anything was proven, but the Dean left, and the Head of Training stood down from a management position, neither voluntarily. The scuttlebutt was there was not much of a case to answer, but if a one legged black lesbian claims discrimination…
WMU have been a fine school. I had reservations about the flagging-out nature of their operations, but they employed some good people. I don’t think it healthy that the UK industry is down to 3 integrated approved schools (us, BAe and Cabair), one of those being entirely in Spain. Consumer choice is good for an industry.