The announcement that the University of East Anglia is to cut 31 arts and humanities posts – out of a total of 36 academic job cuts – has rightly prompted anger as well as dismay. UEA became a literary flagship among the new universities that opened in the 1960s. This year is its 60th birthday, and since 1970 it has been home to one of the most famous creative writing courses in the world: founded by the novelists Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson, its students have included Anne Enright, Ian McEwan and the Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro.
There is shock, among alumni and observers, that the financial problems of the UK’s higher education sector now threaten such prestigious institutions. Once celebrated for their innovative approaches, 1960s campus universities were where different kinds of courses were developed. Creative writing is one example; media, development and women’s studies are others. In cutting the arts and humanities in these universities, managers and policymakers are turning back the clock – at a time when, arguably, there has never been a greater need for courageous innovation. Any idea that the risks are limited to the post-1992 universities should be junked.
Promoting science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) has been a long-term Tory project on grounds that these skills are required by the economy. Earlier this year, Rishi Sunak, who graduated with a degree that doesn’t require maths A-level, criticised what he called the UK’s “anti-maths mindset”. He declared an aspiration to have all students learn maths to age 18. This was wishful thinking, in a country where teacher shortages (including in maths) are harming children’s education. But rhetoric from ministers continues to undermine the study of subjects that are not Stem.
But the problems leading to job cuts run deeper, and are not solely the consequence of a ministerial push towards sciences and away from arts. University finances are in crisis. Student fees have been capped at £9,250 a year since 2017, while costs have kept rising. Highly sought-after institutions have responded by taking advantage of the uncapping of student numbers and recruiting more – even if this means bigger classes, accommodation shortages and a general deterioration in the experience. Meanwhile, international students, who pay higher fees, provided 20% of UK universities’ total income in 2020/2021. But restrictions announced last month on people with student visas bringing family members to the UK, could place this funding stream, too, in jeopardy.
Both students and staff have justified grievances. Students lost out on face-to-face teaching due to Covid, and have seen loan terms altered so that they must start paying them back sooner and keep on paying for longer. Strikes have meant work going unmarked. Academics who are specialists in their fields, following years of study, are frequently stuck on insecure, poorly paid, temporary contracts, while staff pensions as well as pay are the subject of the UK’s longest-running industrial dispute. Meanwhile the pay of vice-chancellors ballooned as universities reconfigured themselves as businesses with interests in property development as well as education.
Ministers bear ultimate responsibility for the deterioration of the UK’s world-leading universities. An elite few with endowments, and unlimited capacity to recruit, can shield themselves from the worst effects. But for others, as the sad story unfolding at UEA shows, the combination of frozen income, high inflation and unfilled places will lead to miserable losses.
