Cuts to Music funding (and others)

[PantTwizzler]

Apparently the government is consulting on cuts to Music funding at HE level. (There are other subjects facing 50% cuts as well: “performing and creative arts, media studies and archaeology”).

The Musicians Union is protesting as you might expect.

Does anyone know what this might mean for prospective students? I have a DD who is thinking of applying for Music for 2022.

It's bad, but not quite as bad as the headlines make out.

Firstly it's not 50% of the whole amount being cut. Currently performing arts is classed a high cost subject (along with medical subjects and technological subjects).

Medical subjects are in the top band A & B so in addition to the £9k odd fees universities get an extra £9,720 (Band A) or £1,458 (Band B) per full time equivalent student. The proposals aim to increase this amount by 4%. Performing arts were in category C1 along with technology subjects and currently receive an extra £243 per full time equivalent student. It is proposed to split C1 category into C1.1 & C1.2 with the targeted creative subjects being put into the new C1.2 category. Their extra funding will be decreased by 50% so they will only receive £121.50 per full time equivalent student.

However certain small, specialist world leading institutions also receive funding to acknowlege their status and the fact that it costs more to deliver a course if you are smaller. The current list of institutions who are eligible for this include several of the leading music conservatoires (but there is a distinct absence of most of the major drama and musical theatre schools due to the way their degrees are accredited) It is proposed for their funding to be increased.

Just in case you are interested the current list of world class specialist providers is as follows:

University of the Arts, London (I'm guessing due to Central St Martins)
Conservatoire for Dance & Drama
Cortauld Institute of Art
Cranfield University
Guildhall School of Music & Drama
Harper Adams University
Institute of Cancer Research
London School of Tropical Medicine
National Film & TV School
Royal Academy of Music
Central School of Speech & Drama
Royal College of Art
Royal College of Music
Royal Northern College of Music
Royal Vetinary College
Trinity Laban

The London College of Fashion is also world renown and is UAL. As an institution UAL is 2nd in world rankings.

Is RADA not world class?

I think the big issue is that the government is providing loans for students for courses where employability is low. There has been research by the IFS which shows what degrees have greatest salary progression and it’s not a surprise to see what subjects are at the bottom. That doesn’t make them worthless but it might mean we need to ensure value for money and fewer young people training for grad roles that don’t exist for many. Hard though that is to accept.

Interesting. Thank you.

RADA is a franchise college of Kings College London, it doesn't confer it's own degrees hence it isn't eligible for consideration under those criteria.

@PresentingPercy

The London College of Fashion is also world renown and is UAL. As an institution UAL is 2nd in world rankings.

UAL is University of the Arts London. I don't know which of their courses make it eligible but it must be small enough.

Really informative posts @Comefromaway, thank you

The other think I forgot to mention is that London based institutions will lose their London weighting funding under the proposals.

Wow presumably that’s quite a blow

Just in case anyone wants to read the document for themselves

www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/8610a7a4-0ae3-47d3-9129-f234e086c43c/consultation-on-funding-for-ay2021-22-finalforweb.pdf

Hmmmm, @Comefromaway not sure I entirely agree with you.

The document is proposing a very blunt instrument to shift extra funding from creative arts education in UK HE to STEMM subjects. They are also proposig - for now - to ring fence a handful of conservatoires. But eventually, how safe those will be is anyone's guess.

The document demonstrates an inaccurate (ignorant) understanding of how creative arts education across UK universities (not just conservatoires) feeds into the creative & cultural industries in the UK. These industries employ over 2 million people and return an extraordinarily high gross value to the UK economy - around £115 billion a year.

It is a short-sighted & party-political motivated policy, which takes a blunt instrument to some aspects of HE funding. Don't be surprised if various departments - particularly at post-92 universities which do so much for accessibility to HE and have far more diverse and equitable student populations - close departments of creative & performing arts.

I don;t disagree with anything you say. It's just the headlines seemed to make out that all the funding would be cut by 50%, not just the extra they get for being a high cost subject.

My daughter studies at a vocational dance college, dh teaches singing at a vocational institution and my son is very likely to apply to an ex poly type institution (Huddersfield or Salford maybe) for music so I have vested interest in arts funding.

You're absolutely right @Comefromaway - our calculations suggest it's a cut of around £250 per student. But in a department of, say 250 students, that's £62,500 pa. That buys a lot of freelance specialist practitioners to come in to teach instrument practice, or life-drawing or a theatre director, for example.

And furthermore, I think what is so damaging about this is the reputational slur: that music or dance are "high cost" and "low value."

At what point does this rhetoric start to be applied to English Literature, or History, or Geography? It's an anti-Humanities approach.

This can't just be about whether they get jobs/good jobs or not. Music and the Arts put huge amount of money INTO the economy.

Good article here:

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/06/plans-for-50-funding-cut-to-arts-subjects-at-universities-catastrophic?fbclid=IwAR0rKfVqy886JT9nX5L40-DXyEM5eaE_DzQtXDDCcqd_NNoKaSuc-pVks4E

Geography these days has very cannily repositioned itself as a science...

There is a petition if anyone wants to have a look/ sign it

www.campaignforthearts.org/petitions/stop-the-50-percent-funding-cut-to-arts-subjects-in-higher-education/

Completely agree with you @Piggywaspushed and @AllThatisSolid (and @Comefromaway) that it’s terrible that the creative arts are being viewed and treated like this, especially when they contribute so much to the economy.

Music and the Arts put huge amount of money INTO the economy.

The DCMS report says this! The government is pretty illogical in their arguments.
www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dcms-economic-estimates-2019-gross-value-added/dcms-economic-estimates-2019-provisional-gross-value-added

@AllThatisSolid , they've already started on history and the other humanities - www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/01/studying-history-should-not-be-only-for-the-elite-say-academics

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/03/is-it-the-end-of-history-in-universities

As DD attended LCF I do support these degrees. However the government has lots of evidence that many of the grads don’t get grad work or work they trained for. That’s lined them up as a govt target to reduce spending on them. They don’t get the loans repaid. The various arts industries employ far fewer than actually do the courses. Especially acting and theatre degrees. It was ever thus.

The history thing is odd. It is till a really popular subject in schools and history is one of the few subjects without a recruitment shortage in teaching.

I am beginning to notice a slide in numbers in history A level, though , as they migrate to STEM. Generally without a post 18 progression in mind but mainly because they think it is 'better'.

Art is reasonably buoyant, music OK , drama dropping like a stone. English Lit in almost terminal decline.

@Piggywaspushed, I had no idea English Lit was in such a bad state, I just assumed it would be okay, especially as so many seem to value it more than English Lang.

@PresentingPercy

As DD attended LCF I do support these degrees. However the government has lots of evidence that many of the grads don’t get grad work or work they trained for. That’s lined them up as a govt target to reduce spending on them. They don’t get the loans repaid. The various arts industries employ far fewer than actually do the courses. Especially acting and theatre degrees. It was ever thus.

There has in recent years appeared a plethora of lower quality musical theatre courses that don’t really prepare students for the industry. Non vocational, academic music and drama degrees have always existed and are perfectly valid. But I do question the sheer number of people doing dance and MT courses who don’t stand any chance of making it a career.

The various arts industries employ far fewer than actually do the courses. Especially acting and theatre degrees. It was ever thus.

That's not actually correct. THe creative industries have wide range of roles/jobs, and wide pathways into them.

The government has a short term political purpose - cutting public expenditure on universities - which will inevitably affect particularly poorer students. So they're misrepresenting the data that their own departments (and also the Arts Council) have produced.