Higher education ‘cuts’ are actually an increase
Of the supposedly punitive “cuts” announced yesterday by George Osborne, al fresco in the Treasury courtyard, few will provoke more howls of outrage than the alleged reduction in the higher education budget. Expect a procession of vice-chancellors through television studios, warning that Britain is being plunged into intellectual darkness and that our competitiveness will be destroyed.
All of which is fantasy, because these “cuts” actually disguise an increase in expenditure that betrays a Liberal-Conservative administration deeply in denial in the face of economic meltdown. The headlines shriek about a £200m cut in higher education spending and a reduction of 10,000 university places. But the reality is a £70m increase in spending and the creation of 10,000 new and completely superfluous student places.
