Is this the beginning of the end for a public higher education system?

Two stories about HE have made the press this week.  The first is the Browne report which proposes tuitions fees starting at £7000 but with no upper limit, it would therefore be no surprise if we see much higher fees, especially from the Russell Group universities.


Then today we see a leaked letter from Universities UK which has been sent to universities warning them to expect cuts of £4.2bn to teaching budgets and £1bn to research budgets a result of the comprehensive spending review.

The result of both these proposals could be an end to the higher education system as we know it.  It would not be a surprise if we see a drop in student applications from those who do not wish to saddle themselves with debts at more than double the current level.  We could also see some universities going bankrupt due to budget cuts and decreased public funding.

What is most worrying is that this clearly looks like the final step to a privatised university system.  If these changes are implemented universities will need to start funding some arts and humanities courses purely from student fees, as funding is to be withdrawn from all but science, engineering, medicine and modern language degrees and with variable fees we are already very close to seeing a private market in HE with only one more step needed to make the system completely funded by tuition fees and private research funding.

UCU and the NUS have organised a joint national demo called "Fund our future:Stop Education Cuts" on 10th November 2010.  Details at http://www.demo2010.org/

Interim cap on non-EU migration bad news for Higher Education

There are many reasons why the Libservatives cap on migration is a badly thought out policy, but the reason which concerns me the most is the effect it will have on Higher Education.

Universities and colleges are already facing hardship, closing departments and making wide spread redundancies, and this is before the implementation of the 25% cut on the Department of Education announced in the budget.  With the cap on migration it will also limit the amount of non-EU students who can attend UK universities.  This will have a devastating effect on university funding if it loses the income from overseas tuition fees.

To quote the article from the BBC News article on the interim measures which are being introduced:

Tim Finch from the Institute of Public Policy Research, said the measures were just a stopgap and would have a detrimental affect on the higher education sector.

He added: "Do we really want to have restrictions on foreign students at a time when the higher education sector is facing funding cuts and is going to rely on the fees that those students bring in?"

According to the Guardian there are 250,000 non-EU students.  This wreckless move will have a devastating effect on higher education.  I hope when the full policy is implemented the government think twice about include non-EU students in their cap, or we may begin to see the closure of whole universities rather than just departments, as there will simply not be the demand out there for the current number of student places.