Universities ask for extra cash

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Universities across the UK are asking the chancellor to boost their core funding by just under a fifth.

The extra £1.3bn would in part fund 2% or 22,000 more students yearly between 2008-11 and help universities update their ageing buildings, they say.

The call comes months after English universities were allowed to increase fees to a maximum of £3,000 a year.

Universities UK says despite this, any fall in public funds would make the sector's position "unsustainable".

The chief executive of the vice-chancellors' umbrella body, Diana Warwick, said the quality of teaching and research was still heavily reliant on public funding, despite the amount of money raised by individual institutions.

"In order to compete in an international market, we need the government to maintain its investment."

The sector's finances are still in something of a fragile state Sir Graeme DaviesUniversities UK

Next year universities are set to receive education department funds of £6.9bn - £738m of which is capital money to invest in building and infrastructure projects.

So the request for an extra £1.3bn represents an increase of almost one fifth.

Although Universities UK is asking for a sizeable extra amount, it insists it is really simply looking for financial stability.

Of the extra cash, some £750m would be invested in work needed to upgrade buildings, equipment and other infrastructure which has built up over the decades.

And around £90m would enable universities to teach more students at the same cost per pupil as they do now.

The rest would go towards funding teacher training, part-time courses and support research and development projects.

'Stability'

Universities UK's funding and management policy committee chairman, Sir Graeme Davies, said the growth in higher education in the 1990s had been achieved at the expense of long-term investment in infrastructure.

"Since then we have had some stability, and have begun to reverse the legacy of the 90s.

"This has included the diversification of our income sources, the most significant being the introduction of variable tuition fees.

"However, the sector's finances are still in something of a fragile state, and any reduction in public income would put us back into an unsustainable situation."

He added: "It is to nobody's benefit for the achievements of this sector to be undermined by a return to the old days of cuts and underfunding.

"What we need now is stability and for the government to keep on giving higher education the support that it has done since 2000."

The submission to the chancellor's Comprehensive Spending Review, which sets out Treasury spending plans in three yearly cycles, breaks down as:<UL><li>£90m for growth in student numbers<li>£160m for part-time teacher education<li>£750m in capital costs for maintaining and upgrading infrastructure as well as investing in new equipment<li>£125m for research<li>£140m for the Higher Education Innovation Fund.</UL>The Treasury said it would not comment on individual CSR submission but would respond to them throughout 2007.

Gordon Brown underlined his commitment to higher education in the pre-Budget report, and has frequently stressed the need for a highly skilled knowledge base able to compete in the global market.