Universities facing £1bn budget cuts

UNIVERSITIES have been told their budgets will be slashed by almost £1 billion at a time when record numbers are trying to get into higher education.

Teaching budgets alone will be cut by £342m by the end of the 2011-12 academic year, as overall funding drops by £940m, according to the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

The cuts will include reductions in both teaching and research funding in the payments due to universities in the final months of the current academic year.

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The reductions in funding between now and the end of 2011-12 include a £342m drop in teaching budgets, a £45m cut in research grants and a £309m drop in capital funding. The cuts are on top of the £2.9bn which will be withdrawn from 2012 when the new tuition fee charges are brought in.

The director general of the elite Russell Group, which includes Sheffield and Leeds universities, Dr Wendy Piat, said that the cuts to capital funding will create long-term difficulties while this year’s teaching cuts would be “challenging” for universities.