David Willetts today announced the effective end of state funding for degree courses in arts, humanities, and social science subjects.
David Willetts today announced the effective end of state funding for degree courses in arts, humanities, and social science subjects.
The cut would mean the full burden of funding for courses such as history (George Osborne, Andrew Mitchell, Chris Huhne), politics (David Cameron, Andrew Lansley, Philip Hammond), social anthropology (Nick Clegg), geography (Theresa May), and European studies (Caroline Spelman) will fall in future on students.
The announcement came today at an exchange with Luciana Berger MP at a Commons Select Committee hearing. According to the BBC:
“Mr Willetts said Lord Browne’s proposals envisaged most of the teaching funding “going in a different way – going via the student” by means of a graduate contribution.
“Under this model, which he endorsed, he said “the teaching grant becomes a much less significant source of resource for universities.” And he confirmed that, under Lord Browne’s proposals, the teaching grant for band C and D subjects – arts, social sciences and humanities – would be all but wiped out.”
The Browne Review recommended a change in funding arrangements for University courses with state funding from the new HE Council going only to:
“Clinical training programmes – this will contain the clinical components of what is currently known as Price Group A: courses such as medicine and veterinary science.
“Priority programmes – this will contain the programmes currently known as Price Group B and potentially some proportion of Price Group C: this is primarily science and technology as well as healthcare courses.”
The omission of any mention of the funding arrangements for arts, humanities, and social sciences – which fall primarily in Price Group D – was replicated in a press release from Willetts’ Business Department last Wednesday which mentioned only the continued funding of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (S.T.E.M) subjects.
The arrangements are unlikely to take place until increased fees are brought in. Just yesterday, Hefce released a ‘review of subject price groups for 2010‘ which outlined that, “no changes will be made to subject price groups for 2011-12.”
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106 Responses to “Willetts announces end of state funding for social sciences”
Terese Bird
RT @leftfootfwd: Willetts announces end of state funding for social sciences http://bit.ly/d2WFDQ
Simon
I can’t see how the Mathematics part of STEM could be expensive.
I have had my concerns that science and technology courses were undersubscribed and schools were being shut. The alleged proliferation of trivial courses, if true, was a devaluation of higher education. However we should all be concerned that these very important areas may be being hit.
Greg Harrington
Aw man! http://tinyurl.com/27gh76e #BoooooooConservatives (Hopefully this hashtag will catch on and they will become pantomime villains)
Laughing Gravy
I took a maths degree more than 50 years ago. It must have been the cheapest degree in the university. We had no lab work, virtually no library work (except I did a course on the History of Mathematics), just lectures and problems to solve – on roneoed sheets. I had to buy the basic texts because there were no handed-out lecture notes – but the cost of these was miniscule. Although I got a good degree I have scarcely ever had to use my maths training in my working life. Any maths related problems I have faced I could have solved with my A-level maths. I may add I was very well trained and can still solve quite complex problems in standard mathematics. Later, I took a social science degree in the evening. That has given me far greater insights into a wide range of issues that I have faced in my career. I have doubts about putting too much emphasis on STEM subjects – both from the point of view of the individual and society at large.
Mr. Sensible
Surely humanities are as important as other subjects?