Professor Janet Jones, Head of College of Design, Creative and Digital Industries, wrote an article for MeCCSA about the defunding agenda around arts and media in higher education.
Professor Jones discussed Education Secretary Gavin Williamson’s recent comments about the student finance system. She wrote: “He appears supportive of Augar’s £7,500 fee reduction for those subjects that don’t provide ‘value for money’, like the Arts and Humanities. He, like his predecessors, has a particular dislike for the study of media. He promised to increase ‘support for strategic subjects such as engineering and medicine, while slashing the taxpayer subsidy for such subjects as media studies’.”
She later added: “Ironically, like most ill-informed government policy, reducing fees may have the opposite effect, and increase the numbers wanting to take English, History, Film Studies, Architecture and Photography. Of course, there’s always the prospect of a return to capping numbers for those ‘low-value’ courses. Either way, Universities will be forced to cross subsidise from their Health and Social Care, Business, STEM and Medicine portfolios. Universities without a broad subject offer will need to look to their international, third income or PG markets.”
Read the full article on the MeCCSA website.
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