Guardian UK: Spending cuts will force 'swaths of universities' to close

from Guardian UK:



Planned cuts in funding pose a risk to the world-class standing of English universities and threaten the country's future prosperity, the head of the group which represents vice-chancellors warns today.

Universities face the deepest cuts of any publicly funded activity, ushering in the most radical changes to higher education in five decades, which could see the closure of "swaths of institutions", says Steve Smith, president of Universities UK and vice-chancellor of Exeter university.

Lord Browne's review of university finance, published last week, assumed the teaching budget would be cut to £700m with funding concentrated in priority areas such as medicine and engineering.

In Education Guardian, Smith writes: "The state is essentially withdrawing from funding university teaching except in a small number of 'priority' subject areas." ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/19/spending-cuts-swaths-universities-close

Did it say "pending funding"? It might have done, at that.

Yeah, funding of just about anything in British higher education is now in doubt. Obviously it won't all go, but few areas can be confident that all their existing posts will have funding in the future.

King's College London, or the college in Cambridge, by the way?

in a department that is actually looking to expand(for now). But future funding is definitely something that I need to be considering.

Heads will bloody roll if the cuts cause the university to close.