英學費上調致學生減少 1/5課程被削大綱

Nearly one in five degree courses has been scrapped since the tripling of tuition fees to £9,000-a-year, it has been revealed.

Universities are concentrating on popular subjects and dropping courses that have too few applicants or are too expensive to run.

Official figures show acull of More than 2,600 in the number of courses available to applicants planning to start their degrees in 2013.

More than 5,200 courses had already been removed for students beginning this year - the first cohort to face the higher fees.

Universities dumped some of the courses even after prospectuses went online earlier this year and in some cases after applications began, according to reports yesterday.

News of the closures come as UCAS figures published last week showed that the number of students in England applying for university places in 2013 has plunged by almost 10 percent already.

Numbers of EU and non-EU students applicants have also dropped.

The scrapped courses range from archeology at Birmingham to languages at Salford and London Metropolitan.

Birmingham had announced six weeks ago that single honours archeology would no longer be offered because ‘it has proved unable to attract sufficient applicants of the appropriate quality’.

The number of courses listed by UCAS has fallen from 43,360 to 35,501 in two years.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: ‘The UK’s global academic reputation is built on the broad range of subjects.

‘While government rhetoric is about students as consumers, the choices have narrowed.’據透露，自從英國大學學費上漲到原來的三倍，達到一年9000英鎊，已有近五分之一的學位課程被削減掉。

大學將重心放在受歡迎的學科上，砍掉那些報名人數少或開課費用太昂貴的學科。

官方數據顯示，英國大學將精選出2600餘門課程供那些計劃2013年開始攻讀學位的報考者選擇。

第一批共同面臨更高學費的學生可修的課程已經被削減了5200多門。

根據昨日發佈的報告，英國大學甚至今年早些時候在網上發佈了課程簡介之後，以及在招生工作開始之後，又削減掉了部分課程。

在課程削減消息發佈的同時，大學入學申請辦事處上週公佈的數據顯示，2013年申請大學的英國學生人數已經減少了近10%。

歐盟和非歐盟成員國的學生申請英國大學的人數也有所下降。

被削掉的課程涵蓋了從伯明翰大學的考古學，到索福爾德大學和倫敦城市大學的語言課程等各類課程。

伯明翰大學六週前宣佈考古學不再頒發單科榮譽學位，因爲“經證實該學科已不再能吸引足夠多的合格報考者”。

大學入學申請辦事處列出的課程數量在兩年內從43360門減少到35501門。

英國高校聯合會的總祕書長薩莉•亨特說：“英國在全球的學術聲譽是建立在廣博的科目基礎之上的。

“雖然政府把學生稱作消費者，但是學生的選擇面變窄了。”