University faces anxious wait over budget cuts

The University of Huddersfield, which has a campus in Oldham, will have to wait until March before finding out how much its budget will be slashed by.

Teaching grants will be cut from £4.9bn to £4.6bn for 2011-2012 with universities in England facing a 6 per cent cut.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) will make a statement on its priorities next month, but will not announce specific allocations until March.

A letter, sent to HEFCE by universities minister David Willetts, made clear that universities must find “comparable efficiencies” to other bodies funded by the taxpayer.

Vice-chancellors were ordered to impose a pay freeze and share services with other universities in order to achieve 6 per cent “efficiency gains” from next April.

If reductions were spread evenly across each university it would mean Huddersfield would lose £3.14 million from teaching grants.

In reality institutions which teach science medicine, engineering and maths — the Government’s top priorities — are likely to escape the worst of the cuts, when decisions are made next year.