Do cuts spell doomsday for higher education? By Stephen Court

23 Feb 10
STEPHEN COURT | Some commentators are presenting a doomsday scenario for higher education. Thirty institutions may not survive, suggests one. Recently announced cuts will bring the sector to its knees in six months, says another

Some commentators are presenting a doomsday scenario for higher education. Thirty institutions may not survive, suggests one. Recently announced cuts will bring the sector to its knees in six months, says another.

And on the other hand, we have a secretary of state for universities who belittles the impact of cuts announced to date. Lord Mandelson says he doesn’t believe by any stretch of the imagination that the £915m of spending reductions in higher education to 2013 will seriously damage the sector.

In this PR battle, fought against a backdrop of Lord Browne’s review of top-up fees, some hyperbole is to be expected. But who is right? The real picture looks more like pound-pinching, squeezing and a deterioration in quality, rather than meltdown.

A number of universities, expecting the worst, have already cut teaching and support staff. With each month that passes, more institutions announce cuts in employment. University and College Union have tallied more than 1,000 jobs that have already gone over the past 12 months or so, out of over 5,000 currently at risk. These reductions are not uniform. Leeds University, looking to reduce its staff by 700 (nearly one in ten), is the worst offender. Even if student numbers remain constant, that sort of pruning is going to damage student:staff ratios. That in turn is likely to feed into negative responses to the annual National Student Survey on the quality of their learning experience. In these league-table conscious days, universities can ill afford poor ratings.

The cuts to recurrent funding for higher education institutions in England in 2009-11, of £315m, could see a further 1,000+ jobs go, and the additional reduction of £600m to HE and science by 2013 will add to the damage.

Teaching is not the only area that will suffer. Reducing the research budget will hit applied and blue sky research. The president of US National Academy of Sciences, Ralph Cicerone, said on Sunday that a brain drain of UK scientists is likely. 'You might not see anything immediately, but you will begin to see a movement of scientists over time. They will go to where the opportunities are, to the US and to places like Singapore that have invested heavily in science, and are hiring from all over the world,’ he said.

This will have a knock-on effect on the economy, and chances of recovery. Higher education’s contribution to the UK economy has been estimated at £60bn a year. Jeopardising that makes little sense, and runs counter to recent policies in the US and elsewhere of increasing funding for higher education to stimulate recovery.

Recurrent funding for teaching and research in England is actually due to rise in 2010-11, but by less than the forecast rate of inflation. The real casualty so far has been capital funding.  A recent report indicated that about 25% of all institutions had at least 10% of their buildings in condition D, that is "poor, the room/building fails to support current functions and/or is unsuitable for current use".

Yes, a great deal of funding has gone into university estates over the past decade. But there is still a backlog of work – not least on teaching infrastructure - to be carried out. Too much trimming could put UK HE in a bad light. At a time when high fee-paying international students are the geese that lay the golden egg, we can ill-afford that to happen.

Stephen Court is senior research officer at the University and College Union

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