HE Funding Cuts

The government has made much of the need to aim higher, introducing a target of 50pc of people going into higher education. The justification has always been that Britain needs better educated employees with higher skill levels, in order to trade blows with our rival nations on an increasingly competitive world stage.
 
The future of Higher Education in the UK was dealt a serious blow as we moved into 2010. In December, further cuts to the Higher Education budget brought the total reductions to around £533 million. Add to this the promise of fines for Universities who had over-recruited, and you are left with an economic situation that Business Secretary Lord Mandelson described as “extremely challenging”.
 
These are worrying words at a potentially crucial time for Higher Education. Continued growth under the Labour Government saw demand for student places in the UK hit a 10 year high in 2009; it is difficult to see how this can continue in such strained financial times. The added pressure to university budgets will inevitably have consequences – larger classes, staff redundancies, and a decrease in quality, are all very worrying, yet possible outcomes. So too, is a further increase in annual fees for students. The potential struggle to finance a degree, then the prospect of graduating with debts well in excess of £10,000, is likely to discourage even the most motivated of students; not forgetting those who simply cannot afford the fees in the first place. Any increase will surely lead to many thousands of young people being denied access to progress naturally onto higher Education and I’m sure we will see diversity in HE narrow.    
 
Alongside the governments raising aspirations, it has now raised expectations. The Admission service for HE, UCAS, has released figures which reveal a 22.9% increase in the number of applications against last year at this point. With this increase in application and with a cut in funding inevitably there will be a lot of unhappy faces later this year. It is essential that institutions such as City College Norwich are preparing for the rise in demand of their IAG services.
 
The impact on the ever-growing numbers of adult learners could also be extremely serious. The outcome of such potential changes is equally gloomy; fewer university places leading to lowered aspirations will have an impact across society. A drop in standards at HE level could see the UK lose the competitive edge that has seen it rise to the forefront of education across the world, and at such challenging times the success of education is crucial to our economic recovery.
 
However, students are not powerless to these potential changes; with a general election approaching fast, now is the time that the student voice must make itself heard. As yet, no mainstream political party has a clear policy on fees, so we must apply pressure to individual candidates and seek commitments to preserving and developing HE education in the UK. To coincide with the deadline for submissions to the review of student fees, the National Union of Students has launched the Vote for Students campaign, which aims to mobilise the student vote for the coming general election. For more information see: www.nus.org.uk
 
More than 200 MPs and parliamentary candidates have signed the pledge, including ex-Health Secretary Frank Dobson, leading backbencher Jon Cruddas, ex-Treasury minister Andrew Smith, former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, Lib Dem Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable and ex-President of the Liberal Democrats Simon Hughes. Green Party leader Caroline Lucas who is standing in Brighton Pavilion constituency and Respect leader Salma Yaqoob who is standing in Birmingham Hall Green constituency have also signed up.
 
NUS has identified a hot list of 20 key student areas where the powerful student vote could make a decisive difference to the result. This follows the 2005 General Election, where many seats with high concentrations of students were widely recognised to have been swayed by the student vote.
 
Don’t let these changes happen without your voice being heard.

Shane Mann's Blog