Posted on 02/01/2010 1:44:05 PM PST by NormsRevenge
English universities' teaching budgets were slashed today for the first time in a decade as part of savage government cuts to higher education.
The cuts come amid unprecedented demand for places, with an expected seven applications for every place at a top university.
Some £215m will be shaved off universities' teaching budgets in the academic year 2010-11, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce), which funds universities on behalf of the government, said in a letter to vice-chancellors.
The £4.7bn that institutions will receive for teaching is 1.6% less in real terms than the amount they received the year before. Vice-chancellors and student leaders said the cuts were "an extraordinary act of self-harm" that would destroy the quality of degree courses..
The amount universities are given for encouraging those from the poorest backgrounds to apply has also gone down by 0.75% to £144m.
Funds for research have been maintained in line with inflation at £1.6bn, but future grants will be concentrated on departments with higher quality ratings for their work – mainly the bigger, more prestigious universities.
Grants for capital projects, such as new buildings, have been cut by 14.9% in cash terms to £562m. This is the equivalent of a £142m cut.
An extra £10m will go to the teaching of science, technology, engineering and maths, which the government is keen to promote. Hefce said the funds were to support universities "that are shifting the balance of their provision towards these subjects".
In total, universities will receive £7.3bn allocatedfor teaching, research, building and other activities, £449m less than they expected to get. In March, each university will know how much they are to receive.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
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Another socialist success story?
Gees, if they cut teaching budgets here, imagine how many ‘commies’ would be out of work. :-}
The UK needs to provide more benefits, free housing, dole money, and endless other benefits to Muslims and other “asylum seekers” aka illegal aliens while elderly pensioners can starve.
But hey not much different than nitwits here who are saying “that good Pastor man he war such a good Christian man bringin all them Haitian babies to America.” Well the pastor and his state can take 300,000 Haitians bankrupting FL. Idiots.
Well they are a basketball school. Oh wait, I thought they were talking about the University of Kentucky.
What?!
You’re going to ask a bunch of Communist University Professors to live like common beggars and poor people?
That’s OUTRAGEOUS!
I knew I should have put United Kingdom in the title.. :-0
Instead of simply slashing university budgets accross the board, why not just hit the ‘soft’ useless courses like ‘Meeja Studies’ or Sociology and prioritise funding for the hard sciences and technical subjects? You know, the ones that actually create graduates with jobs that are useful to our economy and industrial base?
Or is that too much like common sense?
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