The president of Universities UK has urged Conservative chancellor George Osborne to reconsider reported plans to cut the student opportunity fund, which assists the poorest undergraduates in the UK in pursuing higher education.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Sir Christopher Snowden argues that “universities have shouldered substantial cuts over the last few years. The change in the funding model, moving from direct funding by government to student loans, has changed the way cash flows into higher education, creating the false impression that universities have benefited significantly.”

He also said that “the Chancellor has said that he wants to make the UK ‘the best place in the world to do science’ but our competitors invest far more”, noting that public funding for research fell by 13 per cent in real terms during the last Spending Round.

Snowden’s comments reiterate his views on the current standard of British higher education and the money that is available to British universities. In the Daily Telegraph last year, he claimed that “xenophobic” Britain was “driving students away” and maintains that the current tuition fees charged to students were “unsustainable”.

The UUK president’s advice to the government also comes after sustained criticism about the state of higher education in the United Kingdom, following the controversial decision to increase tuition fees to £9,000, which was implemented for new students starting from September 2012.

The Treasury is supposedly considering scrapping the £322 million fund while pushing the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to make cuts.
The president suggests in the article that this overspending may be due to possible “miscalculations about the costs of uncontrolled expansion by private (including for-profit) higher education institutions”.

Sir Christopher also places particular importance on employing a work force made up of graduates with a diverse range of skills in order for Britain to maintain its reputation as a global leader in education and an economic superpower. “We know that about a third of productivity growth between 1994 and 2005 was due to the growth of graduate skills in the labour force.

“Our economy needs more skilled graduates from a wider range of backgrounds. So it would be economically short sighted to reduce support for teaching low-income students.”