The amount of money the government directly spends on teaching at universities is about to be cut for the second year in a row, Universities UK (UUK) has warned.
Speaking to the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee on 2 June, UUK chief executive Vivienne Stern said she believed that the Department for Education (DfE) is planning to cut next year’s Strategic Priorities Grant (SPG), with details expected imminently.
“The government has almost entirely withdrawn from the upfront contribution towards the cost of teaching…and it’s important that I say, the government is about to cut it again,” she told the committee.
“There is a letter sitting in DfE which will be sent to the [Office for Students] maybe in a matter of days, and it will hand a further cut to this little residual Strategic Priorities Grant.
“That’s currently about £1.3 billion. The total higher education sector income is about £46 billion, so you can see the government’s putting a tiny amount of money into the system as a whole to pay for teaching.”
