Universities’ response to the government’s announcement of an extra 10,000 places in higher education for 2009/10 has been somewhat muted.
Although the extra numbers are welcome at a time of record demand for higher education, they are not entirely straightforward.
First, they are in a limited number of subjects: science, technology, engineering, mathematics, economics and business studies. What about the economy-boosting ‘creative’ subjects?
Second, the government is funding only the student support for the new places – there is no additional money for teaching, which puts at risk the ‘no real-terms cuts’ deal for the unit of resource over the past decade.
Third, universities are walking a funding tightrope: if they over- or under-recruit, they face financial penalties, even with the new undergraduate places.
Fourth, the new places look fiendish to administer: extra places are being allocated in pharmacology, but not pharmacy; agricultural technology but not agriculture; architectural technology, but not architecture, and so on.
It is not surprising that leading research-intensive Russell Group universities, such as Bristol, Cambridge, Imperial, King’s College, Liverpool, Nottingham and Oxford have already had their number of extra places reduced to zero at their request...
