This 15 January entry (ie before the most recent budget numbers were
released) in GlobalHigherEd explores some of the issues people have been
discussing here:
Is a UK funding crisis an effective mechanism to spur on the ‘education
as a global growth industry’ development agenda?
http://globalhighered.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/is-a-uk-funding-crisis-needed/
Some of my colleagues in the UK have more recently suggested that the
Russell group figures are 'rubbish' re their view that cuts will bring
universities to their knees, and they put forward the notion that the
ultimate objective (not shared by all, of course) is for student fees to
rise and for a system of graduate loans to be introduced.
Meanwhile US public universities are suffering in a serious way as state
fiscal crises vis a vis thin operating margins puts universities on the
edge. Moody's released a series of analyses yesterday about this issue
regarding one US state. Things will roll along, of course, but the key
issue is who will feel the squeeze and who will be protected and indeed
nurtured...and, of course, this plays itself out differentially at a
range of scales (intra-departmental on up).
I wonder how Geography, as a discipline, will do over the next five
years during this era of fiscal austerity (at least in the US and UK)?
Kris
ps: speaking about restructuring, what happened to USC's Geog Dept?!
http://college.usc.edu/geography/
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