Doubts cast over Masters funding

09 April 2008

University transport departments fear that ‘crucial’ funding for Masters courses for UK full-time students will be axed.

Without this, they would be training mainly overseas students, and would therefore be forced to ‘meet the needs of overseas transport markets rather than the UK’s,’ according to the Universities Transport Partnership (UTP).

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) decided in December that it would take a ‘more strategic approach’ to funding taught Masters courses.

It told Surveyor this was likely to result in fewer taught Masters students being funded across its portfolio, but this was necessary to make a ‘step change difference’ in terms of supporting collaborative research benefiting UK industry.

A final decision would be made on 29 April, the spokeswoman stressed, and this would be based on consultation with universities and an analysis of the Masters being supported.

But Professor John Polak, chair of the UTP, representing eight university transport departments, told Surveyor: ‘This support needs to continue. It provides the fundamental underpinning for our Masters courses.’ While it funded only around one-tenth of the ‘well over 300’ students graduating from transport Masters courses each year, it ensured there was a critical mass of British full-time students.

Employers in the transportation sector were the main source of funding for Masters courses, financing the equivalent of 137 full-time students each year, but these students joined the courses on a part-time basis, and, therefore, took between two to five years to complete. Without the EPSRC funding, the transport Masters course places would ‘inevitably, be overwhelmingly filled by overseas students,’ said Professor Polak, at Imperial College London.

UK students are currently only narrowly in a majority. In 2007/08, 197 of the 342 full-time equivalent students were from the UK, with 145 from overseas. If the overseas students became the majority, the courses content would have to be more focused on overseas.

This would mean that the ‘increasing proportion of overseas students graduating from our courses’ was likely to diminish, as they focused more on overseas markets. Martin Richards, chair of the UTP’s employers’ forum, stressed that there was ‘more demand’ and therefore, ‘scope for expanding places’.

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