Vivienne Stern, chief executive of the member body which represents more than 140 institutions, told The i Paper that she has spent the last 48 hours speaking to vice-chancellors who say the announcement will mean “more course closures” and “more job losses” at universities.
The Government announced earlier this week that it will reintroduce means-tested maintenance grants for students from “lowest income families” who are studying “priority courses” that aim to bolster economic growth.
At present, international student fees heavily subsidise the cost of educating domestic students.
“A university cannot just sit in deficit. Eventually, that will produce a disaster,” she said. “They will have to reduce their costs in order to eliminate the prospect of a growing deficit.”
Further details on eligibility for maintenance grants are expected to be announced at the autumn Budget, but it is thought that “priority” subjects are likely to be similar to those mentioned in the lifelong learning entitlement.
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The controversial tax to pay for the grants would cost universities in England more than £600m a year, particularly hitting leading institutions such as University College London and the University of Manchester, according to research by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI).
Stern welcomed the reintroduction of maintenance grants for students “struggling to make ends meet”, but added that the sector has “beef” with the Government for asking universities to pay for them.
“The university system is under enormous financial pressure, and what has been announced at the Labour Party conference is to do a good thing – introduce grants – but ask universities to pay for it by taking £600 million out of a system that is already, in a very large number of cases, in deficit,” she said.
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Stern said that if the international students levy was introduced overnight, “we’d have an absolute disaster on our hands” because universities need time to adjust to what she believes will be a loss of income.
Stern added that major universities such as University College London and the London School of Economics and Political Science might have to “pull back on” big research projects, while other university leaders would have to think about “what they stop doing in order to absorb that cost”.
The Department for Education (DfE) has been contacted for comment.
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