Scottish universities hit with 8% funding cut

The Scottish Funding Council announced indicative allocations for institutions based on the draft Scottish budget. The  table [27kb] shows the combined cuts in the budgets announced today for all institutions. The teaching budget has been cut by a massive 10.9% and research by 0.6%, with an overall cut of 7.8%.

The union said it was particularly concerned by the massive cut in teaching funding. The Scottish Government has specified that student numbers and the fee level paid per student should remain constant but the overall cut in teaching funding will still be considerable. UCU said it was now time to explore radical ways of raising extra funding for universities, including making big business pay its fair share.

UCU Scottish official, Mary Senior, said: 'The cut in higher education funding is much more severe than the overall cut in the Scottish budget. The rest of the world is investing in higher education and we risk being left behind if we continue to wrongly think we can cut education.

'The 11% cut in teaching funding will particularly impact on the quality of the education our students receive. It is ludicrous to suggest an already stretched sector can do more for less. The time has come to look at better and fairer ways to fund our universities. Big business continues to benefit enormously from higher education and the time has come for it to start paying its fair share of the bill.'