My university has made headlines yet again - they've failed to apply for a GBP 25 MILLION grant, as the News & Star wrote today:

Cumbria university failed to apply for £25 million grant
Exclusive By Phil Coleman
Last updated at 16:59, Friday, 02 April 2010

Bosses at the debt-hit University of Cumbria never applied to the Learning and Skills Council for a £25 million grant as has previously been suggested, The Cumberland News can reveal.

The LSC’s failure to hand over the cash has been cited by managers as one of the key reasons for the financial crisis at the university, which is likely to have a deficit of around £30m by the end of this academic year.
But on its last day in existence this week, LSC officials confirmed that no grant was applied for nor was funding promised, even tentatively.

The LSC’s statement provoked a shocked reaction from politicians and union officials.
Deborah Newell, the LSC’s regional press officer, told The Cumberland News that previous claims that it had failed to provide a £25m grant were wrong. She said: “Although there were initial meetings and discussions, the university did not submit an application to the LSC for capital funding support of further education facilities. Nor was any sum for grant support agreed, even tentatively.”

The statement came just a week after The Cumberland News revealed a catalogue of problems which helped trigger the current crisis, including a promise to not tackle overstaffing for two years after the university’s creation in August 2007.

That helped push staffing costs up to 71 per cent of the annual budget – the highest in the country.
Managers have suggested that another key cause of financial woes has been the continued provision of further education at Newton Rigg, which they say has contributed £5.1m to the debt.
Vice-chancellor Prof Peter McCaffery has refused to rule out selling farmland used by students at the Penrith campus.

Last week, the university’s communications boss Lynn Clark said managers must look at all areas of business “in the light of reduced student number growth and lack of expected capital funding from the LSC”.
Reacting to the LSC’s statement, David Maclean, MP for Penrith and the Border, said Mr McCaffery had “inherited a pig in a poke” if the LSC was right. He said: “It’s extraordinary. We were led to believe they had applied for capital funding to the LSC, and told that the LSC had reneged on that promise. The professor is clearly not at fault but his predecessors need to give an explanation.”

Carlisle MP Eric Martlew said: “If somebody has been saying that they put in for a grant and they hadn’t, then we need an explanation. But we need to move forward.”

Wanda Armstrong, whose union Unison represents support staff, said: “I’m really shocked and quite disgusted. The lack of LSC funding was always given to us as one of main reasons that we are now in this mess.”
A university spokeswoman said: “The University of Cumbria was in close liaison with the LSC while it was preparing to submit its application to the LSC for funding.

“Unfortunately, this happened at the same time as the LSC was being forced to revisit its capital budget.
“Once the LSC had revisited its budget the vast majority of the projects that they were considering at that time were simply not fundable.

“Unfortunately, the university’s application was one of these. The very few projects that the LSC were able to fund were ready to start construction immediately. Unfortunately the UoC was not in that position.”


Why doesn't any of this come as a surprise anymore?

Sorry for going on about my university, the University of Cumbria.

But this interview with my friend and course mate Stephen Graham made the front page of local newspaper News & Star today:

Cumbria university students claim they have been let down by lack of cash
By Thom Kennedy
Last updated at 13:34, Monday, 08 February 2010

Furious students from the University of Cumbria say they have been let down by a lack of investment in new facilities.

Plans to regenerate the city’s Viaduct Estate with a large £70m flagship university campus – including a theatre and arts centre for the city – have been put on hold because of financial problems.

That leaves students coming to Carlisle facing swingeing cuts to the university’s ambitious plans, including the dropping of some courses including law.

Final year journalism student Stephen Graham, 29, of Chatsworth Square in the city centre, said: “I started at the university in the first intake when it first formed, and over the three years the quality has degraded and I am glad to be leaving it now.

“Things like Brampton Road library closing have made it harder to study for my dissertation. It’s all very disappointing for students in Cumbria as they are going to have to travel away to go to university. It’s bad for the area.

“I feel really sorry for the next generation of students coming here. If I was going to stay on after I finish and do a Masters, I wouldn’t do it at the University of Cumbria. If it carries on the way it is, it’s going to implode.”
Steven Ramshay, of Kingstown Road, Carlisle is in his first year at the university, studying journalism. He said: “We were promised the library in Brampton Road, and we’ve been disappointed. I have been let down.
“It has turned out nearly the complete opposite of what I expected when I came to university. My sixth form college is better. The facilities available are very mediocre for a university.”

Recent MA graduate Kevin Murphy added: “They are reducing the facilities tremendously. Students will have signed up 12 months ago being promised a library and all these facilities, and now they are just reducing them.
“The library was a key part of the university as that’s where most of the research goes on.”

The Students’ Union launched a campaign last autumn to save the library when university bosses relocated it to Fusehill Street following a boost in student recruitment at the Brampton Road site.

Other students have expressed their anger at the university’s proposal to cut the law course next year, prompting a group of students to start a Facebook campaign to save the course. A plea to students reads: “The powers-that-be are proposing to axe the law degree at University of Cumbria after only two intakes of students.

“Why can’t we have a local university with prestigious degree courses like law in Carlisle? Why must we focus purely on agriculture, nursing or teaching? Why not have a wide range of courses to ensure local firms employ local people?”

Lecturers at the university’s Ambleside campus, which is set to be mothballed as a £2m cost-cutting measure, have refused to rule out strike action over the plans.

South Lakes MP Tim Farron, who is fighting to keep the Ambleside campus open amid the budget cuts, described a decision to allow outdoor studies students to continue using Ambleside as ‘a partial victory’.
However, he added: “I’m devastated for teacher training students who are still being asked to move, and for dozens of hard-working and long-suffering members of staff who may now face redundancy. Many who have given their life to the campus and to its generations of students face redundancy and an uncertain future.”

I just wanted to show you that it's not just me, who's complaining about the way this university handles things. But UoC is not the only university facing cuts. For more, read the article that was featured in The Guardian today!