The government is set to cut 10,000 extra university places, despite a record increase in applications.

There will be funding for only 10,000 more university places, for students starting their degrees this autumn – just half of the 20,000 extra places pledged by Gordon Brown’s government.

These will consist of 8,000 full-time undergraduate places and 2,000 part-time places.

Warwick SU President Andrew Bradley said: “I believe that everybody who wants to study at University level should be able to, regardless of age, employment status or financial situation. Today’s students should not have to pay the price of financial mistakes made by those who went before us.”

He added, “Clearly, we cannot ignore the fact that record numbers of graduates does not always result in the same number of graduate level jobs… However, if there are people who want to enter higher education who are stopped because of arbitrary limits or insufficient funding, then they have been badly let down by the Government.”

A current Warwick student, however, said, “I think the idea of making more university places is a mistake. It devalues degrees if 500,000 people are studying for them every year.”

Applications this year rose by a staggering 16.5% compared with the previous year, but many students now look set to miss out, as the coalition government’s public spending cuts get under way.

The lecturers’ union, UCU, told the Guardian that ministers had “dashed the hopes of thousands of people” by axing half the expected additional places.

The government has revealed that The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which includes universities, can expect a 3.9% budget cut, of £836m.

£118m of this will come from the fund set up by Labour to finance extra places, whilst universities will have to make savings of a further £82m.

Professor Steve Smith, President of Universities UK, said, “Universities are already dealing with the impact of over £1bn of cuts announced by the previous government since last December. A further £20m of in-year cuts will make the task of meeting student demand this summer – and not compromising on the quality of the student experience – even harder.”

However, a spokesperson for The University of Warwick said, “Quite simply it does not affect Warwick at all – we are more interested in expanding postgraduate research numbers.”

The University will no doubt be pleased, therefore, that the government has said spending on research, innovation, business and enterprise will be protected within the £7.3bn total budget for higher education

Published on page 4 of the newspaper in Volume 32, Issue 14.