By Richard Johnstone | 21 March 2013
Public funding for universities and colleges has been cut by more than £800m as part of the ‘transition’ to a funding system based on higher student fees.
The Higher Education Funding Council for England today allocated £4.47bn for the 2013/14 academic year to 129 universities and higher education colleges and 203 further education colleges. The settlement, down from £5.3bn this year, includes increases in some areas and cuts in others. The £2.3bn teaching grant has borne the biggest reduction, a £900m cut from this year.
Hefce said the overall settlement reflected the switch from the ‘old regime’, when annual fees were capped at £3,375, to the new limit of £9,000, introduced at the start of the current academic year. Students who enrolled before the rise in fees are still paying under the old limit, requiring a phasing in of the new funding system. Comparing like with like, there has actually been a small increase of around 1% in funding for existing students and 2013/14 entrants.
Hefce said its priority was to ensure ‘a smooth transition to the new funding arrangements’, so they are implemented in a way that makes sense for both students and the higher education institutions.
As part of this, the teaching grants are increasingly focused on meeting costs incurred by universities that cannot be funded by tuition fees alone. This includes support for some high-cost subjects, or those deemed strategically important or vulnerable.
Funding for research programmes has been maintained in cash terms from 2012/13 at £1.6bn and will be concentrated on ‘world-leading and internationally excellent activity’.
Capital funding has been increased, from £265m to £280m, to ensure that projects across the sector to encourage greater use of information technology continue.
Hefce chief executive Sir Alan Langlands said the funding announcement offered predictability at a time of change.
‘As Hefce funding for teaching reduces, and university income through tuition fee loans increases, we will continue to invest on behalf of students to support excellence and diversity in learning and teaching, and a high-quality student experience. We remain committed to ensuring that people with the potential to benefit from participation in higher education have the opportunity to do so.
‘Our recent report on the impact of the government’s reforms on students and institutions reveals a mixed picture. There are signs of increased dynamism, as institutions refine their strategies and educational programmes to respond to the funding changes. A number of pressing issues are emerging in relation to part-time and postgraduate recruitment. There are early signs of subject vulnerability, and a marked decline in numbers of mature students, which suggests that we will need to be alert to changes in participation, in particular by disadvantaged groups.’
