Anglia Ruskin University has announced that it will be cutting 1,000 student places in the next academic year. This decision has come in the wake of £215 million reductions in the Education budget, a cut which will rise to a total of 950 million by 2013.

This decision has come at a particularly bad time for ARU. The number of applicants had increased by 30% in previous years, and this had led to ARU planning an extension to their campus. The new University Centre at Harlow has recently had its planning permission approved, with intended facilities including a 96 seat lecture theatre, an i-Lab and conferencing facilities.

Michael Thorne, the vice chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University told Varsity: “It is not places that will be lost. The Government is capping the number of full time UK undergraduates any university can recruit this September to the number recruited in 2008.

“Because of a baby boom 17 or 18 years ago there are more sixth formers than ever before wanting a university place and likely to be academically qualified to get one.

“At Anglia Ruskin applications are up more than 30% and we would normally have expected to take an additional 1700 students this coming summer as a result of that increase. Instead, however we shall have to turn them away.”People estimate that across all universities more than 200,000 students will be turned away this year.”

His statements are echoed by Professor Steve Smith, the President of Universities UK, who has sharply criticised the Government, saying that similar losses in University places will be felt throughout the country.

But the Minister for Higher Education, David Lammy, has described this prospect as “scaremongering” and assured his listeners that HEFCE, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, would cut in such a way as to minimise the impact on staff and students.

Whilst the bulk of the cuts are being targeted towards capital projects and expansions, the teaching grant is scheduled to fall by £215 million, with a further reduction of £48 million from postgraduate and foundation courses. Professor Smith has said that these cuts will inevitably reduce the quality of teaching.