University blues

He isn't the first politician to do so. And he's unlikely to be the last. For, even though many spending cuts are yet to be finalised, the financial shockwaves are already reverberating around higher education.

Unlike the NHS where spending will be protected, even though the Health Service would probably benefit from an efficiency drive, the country's top universities – and their world-class research centres – have not been offered any such guarantees.

Indeed, they're already being implored to make savings, and these cuts are already at an unreasonable level, according to luminaries such as Professor Michael Arthur, the highly-respected vice-chancellor of the University of Leeds.

Fundamentally, his argument is a compelling one. Britain's universities and the top institutions, which rank among the best in the world, have a crucial role to play in developing the entrepreneurs of the future – whether they be business leaders or pioneering scientists. Yet this will be put at peril if there are fewer academic staff and bigger classes.

Many will sympathise with Professor Arthur's intervention, and the two clear distinctions that can now be made. First, the Government's approach is at odds with the desire of Ministers for even more students to go to university. And, second, if this is the situation now, what will the consequences be when the next government has to heed the Chancellor's advice and take drastic action to reduce the national deficit? It does not even bear thinking about.