University funding increased
Total funding for universities and colleges in England will rise by 6.4 per cent in the 2007-8 school year, it has been announced.The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) said the increase would make possible the prospect of higher education for 33,000 more full-time students.It added that the funding package provided a 5.4 per cent increase in research funding and a 2.75 per cent rise in funding per student for teaching purposes."This is a good settlement for universities and colleges, providing both stability in terms of their forward planning and a healthy rate of growth," HEFCE chief executive Professor David Eastwood said.The Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) welcomed the new funding provision but said that, despite the rise, one-fifth of higher education institutions in England would suffer a real-term reduction.UCU joint general secretary Sally Hunt said this was "just not acceptable". "Universities that have succeeded in recruiting extra students may have seen their funding increase, but university staff will need far greater resources if they are to really tackle issues such as the student: staff ratio, which is now higher than in our schools," she commented. Higher education minister Bill Rammell said the funding was well received given the large increase in university applicants for entry in the 2007-8 academic year."These highest-ever figures show that tuition fees are not putting students off applying to university as many predicted. The critics of the new system are being proved emphatically wrong," he said.
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