Performance and creative higher education courses at English universities are facing funding cuts next year, according to guidance given to the universities regulator. The annual guidance given for each financial year to the regulator by the Secretary of State for Education Gillian Keegan (Conservative, Chichester) instructed the Office for Students (OfS) to freeze grants for creative courses, including drama and arts degrees, at undergraduate level, and cut them for postgraduate studies.
The freeze in funding allocates £16.7 million for the 2024-25 financial year, the same as that of 2023-24. Although the funding remains equal to this year’s, the effects of inflation mean that this is a real-terms cut in the budget allocated. Whilst the universities regulator, per the terms and conditions provided by the Secretary of State, are able to provide more funding than this, as this figure was established as a lower limit, there are no requirements to do so. It is currently unclear by how much the body will be expected to cut postgraduate allocation by.
The grants in question exist to allow institutions to fill the gap in required funding between the course cost and the income provided from each student’s tuition, which is currently capped at £9250 per academic year for undergraduates and remain unregulated for postgraduate courses. This coincides with instruction to increase the same grant for high-cost courses such as engineering and medicine by £18 million. This 2% increase is notably lower than inflation.
This move has been widely condemned by many within the creative industries. The chief executive of the GuildHE group Gordon McKenzie, condemned “ministers’ disdain for creative education”, highlighting that the country’s “creative industries deliver over £115bn in value to the U.K. and create jobs at three times the U.K. average”. This sentiment was echoed by Universities UK, who similarly criticised the decision, calling for “urgently need[ed] investment in teaching funding” and calling the announcement “that OfS grant funding has also been cut in real terms…very disappointing”.
Grants for creative degrees were worth £36 million in previous years, until this was cut by nearly 50% in the 2020-21 financial year by then Education Secretary Gavin Williamson (Conservative, South Staffordshire), which received strong backlash at the time from creative industries and political parties.
Whilst the industry has been quick to criticise these moves, the same cannot be said for other political parties. No response to these cuts has yet been forthcoming from The Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Reform U.K. or the Green Party. With Parliament currently in Recess until April 15th, the Secretary of State for Education will likely not face questions on these cuts until the next Oral Questions to the Department of Education, taking place on April 29th.
As universities continue to struggle with a funding crisis and often relying on the higher tuition fees of international students, these latest changes to funding allowances will put more pressure on creative courses at English universities, with many struggling to finance or even ending courses in many areas of the creative arts. It is unclear at this stage what visible effects, if any, these changes will make to content delivery and course structure, but will likely be an additional financial challenge for the higher education sector.
Read the full guidance from the Secretary of State for Education to the Office for Students here
