Universities raid their own savings to pay fees for one in five students

SCOTTISH universities will have to fund one in five student places from their own reserves next year due a funding cut of almost £50 million, they have claimed.

Principals have also warned they will have to cut places from 2012 if more funding is not found because of the reduction in their budgets next year.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) yesterday published a breakdown of the number of places every university in Scotland is expected to provide.

The statistics show the Scottish Government expects 124,526 undergraduate and postgraduate places to be available across Scotland for 2011-12.

However, the Scottish Government will only pay in full for 98,384 of those places, leaving the institutions to fund the rest through their own reserves.

Some will likely be forced to cut staff or increase class sizes to fund the shortfall.

It was revealed last year that the higher education sector would face a 49m cut in funding. University leaders at the time agreed to maintain student places this year and to fund a proportion themselves.

Last night they said the situation could only be maintained for a year and that a solution in future years would have to be found.

Alastair Sim, director of Universities Scotland, which represents principals, said: "These figures show that universities will be stretched to the limit as one in every five students will be only fractionally funded.

"Universities will somehow have to find the rest themselves.

"Universities agreed to keep student places the same next year because of high demand, but they cannot afford to keep on shouldering the commitment to teach students for a quarter of the cost.

"This shows how urgently Scotland needs to find a sustainable solution to university funding. The alternative means drastically cutting student places from 2012 and no university wants to deny well-qualified applicants the place they deserve."

Mark Batho, SFC chief executive, said: "We appreciate that this is an exceptionally difficult time for the sector."

He said the SFC has announced the allocations earlier this year to allow universities to plan and were allowing more flexibility in how places were divided across subjects. He added: "We're also saying that if universities are getting close to their threshold for full-time undergraduate places to maintain their intake they can talk to us about a 'bank' of up to 1,000 places we can use to help out if necessary."

Students urged universities to keep their end of the bargain and pay for the extra places.

Liam Burns, president of NUS Scotland, said: "Universities have pledged to keep their side of the bargain and we must now expect them to do so."A cut in places would have been a tragedy for thousands of school leavers, college graduates and adult learners wanting to come to university."

The Scottish Government last year published a Green Paper which sought to find solution to the university funding shortfall.

The plan to raise the cap on tuition fees in England has prompted fears universities south of the Border will have access to more funds, and impoverished Scottish institutions, which don't charge fees to home students, will deteriorate.

Some of the options being consulted on include a graduate contribution and possibly raising fees to English students who study in Scotland to prevent institutions north of the Border being seen as the cheap option.

Education secretary Michael Russell also meet with EU education officials in Brussels this week to seek a solution to the anomaly which forces the Scottish Government to pay the fees of European students.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "Universities' agreement to maintain core student numbers is a commitment that demonstrates they understand the importance of protecting frontline services.

"They are shouldering a share of the burden imposed by the massive cut in Scotland's budget imposed by the UK government and they are doing it in a way that protects student places. That is to be welcomed."