by Hugh O’Shaughnessy
A UNIVERSITY with one of the highest proportions of poor and ethnic minority students in Britain is in danger after its funding was savagely cut.
Brian Roper, vice-chancellor of London Metropolitan University, has resigned after it was revealed that the college is £56 million in debt. The college has had its funding cut by £18 million and is now in negotiations with the university funding agency about how it will pay back a further
£38 million for students who failed to complete their courses.
There are fears that up to 550 of the 2,300 staff at the college – formed by a merger of the Polytechnic of North London and City of London Polytechnic – will lose their jobs.
Already targeted for closure is its pioneering International Institute for the Study of Cuba. Dr Stephen Wilkinson, its assistant director, told Tribune it may have to shut in the summer. Amanda Sackur of the University and College Union said it was effectively being “strangled at birth”.
Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MP for Islington North, has put down an early day motion in the House of Commons condemning the cuts which will destroy a college with a deserved reputation for helping poorer families and which has more black and ethnic minority students than all the elite Russell Group of universities put together.
The UCU, Unison and NUS fear that other universities – including Bristol, Cumbria, Hertfordshire and Lincoln – are also planning cuts.
