11 November 2008
Million+ warns widening participation at risk after freeze in student numbers.
Responding to an advice letter sent to universities today (Tuesday) from the Higher education funding council (Hefce), Professor Les Ebdon Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire and Chair of the university think-tank Million+ has warned that a restriction on funding additional student numbers risked damaging widening participation in higher education.
The Hefce letter informed universities that no more than 10,000 additional student numbers would be funded for 2009/10. Given that these numbers have already been allocated to universities since January 2008, this means that there will be no further additional student numbers funded in the next academic year (2009/10). The letter from the Funding Council also stated that they were making no further allocations of additional student numbers at this stage for 2010/11.
Professor Les Ebdon said “This has to be the wrong response to the economic downturn. DIUS has clearly badly miscalculated the funding implications of the full-time student support regime and the Funding Council is guilty of lacking imagination. The matched funding initiative introduced by DIUS at a cost of £200m could quite easily have been deferred and part-time student numbers could have been incentivised which incur far less cost to the Department.
But the really crucial issue is how this will be managed. UCAS statistics confirm that students from fee-paying schools dominate early applications to universities while students from non-traditional backgrounds apply much later in the admissions cycle and through clearing. Given that the admissions cycle for 2009 has already begun, the intervention by the Funding Council at this stage is bound to disadvantage non-traditional students. Ministers need to pay urgent attention to this if they want to minimise any further damage to widening participation.”
ENDS
Notes to editors
- Million+ is a leading university think-tank, working to solve the complex problems in higher education. www.millionplus.ac.uk
- Hefce is the Higher Education Funding Council for England
- The Hefce letter can be found at www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/circlets/2008/cl32_08/
- For more information please contact Gemma Tumelty, Public Affairs Officer on 0207 7171657 or 07900 277819