Universities Set For GBP940m Cut In Funding

Fri, 04 Feb 2011

Universities in England will lose nearly £1 billion in funding next year, the Higher Education Funding Council for England has announced (Hefce).

Hefce revealed its final funding allocations for the 2011/12 academic year, which showed that overall budgets will be cut by £940 million, or 9.5 per cent.

This will include a £180 million reduction in teaching funding and a £309 million cut in capital funding .

Research budgets will also be slashed by £17.4 million, while funding for raising the proportion of students from the poorest homes at university will be frozen at £144m.

Universities have also been informed that funding for the final four months of the 2010-11 academic year will be affected. They will now receive £190m less than they had planned for.

The cuts will put further pressure on England’s universities who are struggling to cope with unprecedented demand for places.

Hefce chief executive Sir Alan Langlands said: "This is a challenging financial settlement. We are attempting as far as possible to support a smooth transition for all institutions to the new student finance and funding arrangements which will take effect in academic year 2012-13."

"Universities and colleges have anticipated the challenges ahead and many have already taken difficult decisions to reduce their costs."

But Gareth Thomas, Labour's shadow universities minister said "the decision to cut so much from university teaching budgets, the massive cut to capital funding and then to load the cost on to the next generation of students by trebling tuition fees is unfair, unnecessary and unsustainable."
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