Huge Cash Cuts to Hit Teaching at Universities

admin — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 18:59:01 +0000

Universities will have to make swingeing cuts after Lord Mandelson abruptly slashed teaching budgets by millions of pounds.
Deparments are expected to close, some degree courses will be axed and students will have to pay higher fees.
Academics condemned the timing of the announcement and said that the plan to claw back £135 million was a kick in the teeth. Universities had already been ordered to find £180 million in savings in the next 18 months.
When savage spending cuts were announced in the Pre-Budget Report, schools were given immunity but universities were not. The cuts meanthat funding per student has fallen in real terms for the first time in ten years.
A review of tuition fees that began last month and will conclude after the general election is expected to recommend that they be raised considerably from the current £3225 a year.
The Business Secretary said that universities should move from the three-year, full-time undergraduate degree model towards a “wider variety of provision”, such as foundation and fast-track degrees. They will be encouraged to focus more on the skills and knowledge demanded by employers rather than on academia for its own sake. Those that disobeyed the Government by taking on too many students this autumn will be penalized in next year’s grants at a rate of £3700 per extra full-time student.
Lord Mandelson made his position clear to the Higher Education Funding Council for England. He said that his predecessor repeatedly made clear the risks of student over-recruitment putting unmanageable pressures on the student support budgets.
The council will inform universities of their individual grants in March.

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Huge Cash Cuts to Hit Teaching at Universities