The perils of expansion
Yet again, government calculations have fallen short. £200 million short to be precise. Whilst the inevitable complications of the credit crunch have to be taken into consideration and sympathised with, these days it seems all too frequent that the government’s sums just don’t add up. As the demand for University placements is escalating at an alarming rate (last year UCAS reported a 7% increase in online applications), York and many other universities are being forced to close their doors to the ever growing throng of British students.
Unfortunately for York, the ‘doors’ happen to be the brand new, shiny doors of the £500 million Heslington East development. Whilst officials at the University state the expansion project is “unaffected by the Secretary of State’s announcement”, what this effectively means is that the new accommodation will be dominated by a majority of postgraduate and foreign students, bearing in mind that the penalties for admitting more home students than originally planned and budgeted for include “changes to the operation of our funding method”. Put simply, that means bad behaviour will result in no more pocket money for York.
Arguably just as problematic as this imbalance of incoming students is the fact that it remains difficult to know who to blame. Perhaps the University was a little over zealous in its expansion plans, and should have foreseen a governmental clampdown before signing over huge sums of money, but it’s easy to say that in hindsight.
What is now certain is that York faces a difficult and delicate balancing act. With applications across the country at an all time high, it’s more important than ever for York to be thorough when offering out the available places left to home students. If departments want to attract the best academic candidates and further the university’s reputation, they are going to have to make sure they are not turning away those who deserve places most. Whilst the balance of students and the politics involved in allocating the new space in Heslington East remains something of a question mark, we must not allow the academic future of the University to suffer as a result of bureaucratic incompetence.
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