University cash should be given to further education colleges, says report

Universities sit on reserves of £12.3bn while more than one in four further education colleges is facing bankruptcy

City of Kent college students receiving their A-Level results (flickr (City of Stoke on Trent Sixth Form College))

More than £500m should be taken from UK universities in the Spending Review and given to further education colleges to improve training for engineers, technicians and skilled construction workers, says a new report.

Universities are sitting on vast reserves of £12.3bn while in contrast the National Audit Office has warned that more than one in four further education colleges could be bankrupt within a year, the report by the think-tank Policy Exchange says.

£12.3bn

The reserves held by UK universities

Public spending is currently skewed too much towards higher education to the detriment of further education, the report concludes.

It also calls for student loans and maintenance grants to be expanded to offer further education students the same deal as university students.

The report finds that university funding has increased significantly since the introduction of tuition fees, with a rise in overall income of 26 per cent since 2009-10.

By contrast, further education colleges have seen a significant drop in their revenue, with the adult skills budget having been cut by 24 per cent since 2009-10.

John Widdowson, the president of the Association of Colleges, said: “The outdated practice of highly funding our universities while continually taking money away from colleges is creating a surplus of graduates and not enough people with the qualifications required for technical and professional jobs, such as engineering and construction.”

But Nicola Dandridge, the chief executive of Universities UK, said making cuts to higher education would be a “false economy” and that it should not be an “either-or” choice between further and higher education.