Each day comes a new and shocking statistic about the destruction being wrought by this government. But the news in March from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has devastating implications for Britain’s skills and knowledge bases: the numbers taking up part-time undergraduate degrees have fallen by 40 per cent since 2010 – that is, 105,000 fewer students.
The fall in part-time numbers for postgraduate studies was 27 per cent. Part-timers starting university courses in September last year were down about 30 per cent on the previous year. Clearly, people have been put off by the exorbitant tuition fees in England, which have risen to a high of £9,000.
The HEFCE report refers to higher education as being “one of the nation’s most valuable assets”. And the government’s policies are destroying this great national asset. ■