[-empyre-] prolitariat

[Simon Biggs]

Hi Stephanie

In respect of the funding settlement for HE I can only go on the contents of
the Browne report and statements in the press and at HE conferences by Cable
and Willetts (the relevant government ministers). Also, what applies in
England only applies partly in Scotland. That is to say, England will set
the envelope for Scotland but we will set our own priorities within that.
Scotland has control of its own pedagogical and core research funding,
although only a small percentage of responsive mode funding is available
through Scottish routes. For major funds we look to England, which has the
lion's share. Nevertheless, to a slim degree, Scotland is protected from
some of the worst cuts.

The Browne report seems to have been accepted by the government, although
implementing it will require legislation so nothing is certain. The only
Browne recommendation the government seems to have rejected is the lifting
of any cap on fees that Universities might choose to charge. So it looks
like there will be a cap. This is likely to be around £8,000 but we don't
know yet. We should know before Christmas. The current cap in England is
around £3250. In Scotland, for Scottish and EU students, HE is free but
English students have to pay English fees.

The main thrust of the Browne report (accepted by government) is that
students will no longer be subsidised and they will be required to pay the
full cost of their studies. The manner by which this will be financed is
that students will borrow the money up front required for fees and
subsistence. This is likely to average out at around £60,000 for a standard
BA Hons. Some subjects will cost more (Medicine, Architecture and Law).
Students will then be required to pay this back, at the inter-governmental
loan interest rate (currenly 2.2%) plus inflation, once they start to earn
over £21,000 pa. It will be comparable to a small mortgage. Currently
English students start to pay back their subsidised loan when they earn
£15,000 plus, but with no interest or inflation factored in.

The government undertakes to then subsidise what it considers to be
strategically important subjects. Currently this includes many (but not all)
science subjects, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM). This subsidy
is expected to be around 25% of the real cost of those courses. Universities
will have to budget to provide all their teaching delivery and support from
these two sources of income, plus anything they can collect from endowments,
charity, non-EU students and such-like. For teaching oriented institutions
the future is bleak. In the arts, humanities and social sciences it is
potentially catastrophic. We will see the emergence of an American style HE
sector, where such subjects will be the preserve of those social classes who
can afford to take non-vocational degrees. These degrees will largely be
delivered in those institutions that can afford to run them, the Russell
Group (the UK version of the Ivy League) led by Oxbridge, with London,
Edinburgh, York and a dozen or so others. The other 100 UK Universities will
struggle. This will only compound the class divisions that continue to
define British culture.

For research-led institutions (again, mainly the Russell Group) it is more
mixed. The research budget has been frozen for the next four years. This is
estimated to represent a real-term cut of 10% over the period, depending on
inflation. The sector was braced for a 25% cash cut so this is far better
than expected. Sighs of relief were heard on Wednesday. Nevertheless, it is
challenging. In the arts and humanities it will mean further funding
programmes being shutdown and a tightening of success rates, already down to
around 12%. I guess they will drop to about 8%. As someone who sits on some
of the funding panels it is tragic to see this happening. Some of our most
innovative programmes, such as three year Fellowships in the Creative and
Performing Arts (worth up to £250,000), have already been discontinued.
There is not a lot left for the creative arts and the tightening has hardly
begun.

As for the overall social contract - the social housing budget has been cut
by 50%, disability benefit by 40%, income support by a similar amount, local
government the same, arts by 35%, etc. Health and pre-K12 education are
ring-fenced but in real terms face a cut. The list goes on. You can download
the spending review document here:
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/spend_index.htm

I would suggest this is worse than the 1970's. The consensus seems to be
that the last time there were cuts on a similar scale was the 1920's. These
are epoch changing decisions and arguably represent the end of the post-war
social settlement in the UK. Some would argue this hasn't come too soon. I
agree on some details. The UK has changed a lot since 1945 and many of the
sacred cows we have nursed since then have become white elephants. But that
does not mean you sweep away the fundamentals of a progressive
re-distributive social economy and replace it wholesale with a free
marketeer's wet-dream.

I know a lot of people, especially in HE, who are considering packing their
bags.

Where did I leave that large backpack?

Best

Simon


Simon Biggs
s.biggs at eca.ac.uk  simon at littlepig.org.uk
Skype: simonbiggsuk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/

Research Professor  edinburgh college of art
http://www.eca.ac.uk/
Creative Interdisciplinary Research in CoLlaborative Environments
http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice
http://www.elmcip.net/
Centre for Film, Performance and Media Arts
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/film-performance-media-arts


> From: Stephanie Donald <stephanie.donald at rmit.edu.au>
> Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2010 07:01:04 +1100
> To: Simon Biggs <s.biggs at eca.ac.uk>, <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] prolitariat
> 
> Simon
> 
> Can you pull out the key changes to the social contract and the actual
> percentage of spending cuts?
> Is the attack on funded education in the Humanities in the outcome as some are
> suggesting from the Brown report?
> What is the spending benchmark against which the cuts are occurring? I cant
> quite believe that the UK is going to be a brown as the seventies again - but
> if it is we need to know!
> steph
> 
> Prof Stephanie Hemelryk Donald FRSA FASSA
> Dean 
> School of Media and Communication
> Bldg 9.
> College of Design and Social Context
> RMIT
> Melbourne Vic 3001
> Ph: +61 3 99253960
> http://www.rmit.edu.au/mediacommunication
> http://www.stephaniedonald.info/
>>>> "Simon Biggs" <s.biggs at eca.ac.uk> 22/10/10 8:34 PM >>>
> There are the beginnings of stirrings here in the UK. This weekend there
> will be large demo's across the country against the government's economic
> proclamations this week.
> 
> Sadly though, till now, the resignation of Wayne Rooney from Man U has
> generated more headlines and civil unrest than the deepest spending cuts in
> 85 years and sweeping changes in the social contract that has bound the UK
> together since WWII.
> 
> Who said the Brit's are a downtrodden and resigned bunch?
> 
> Best
> 
> Simon
> 
> 
> Simon Biggs
> s.biggs at eca.ac.uk  simon at littlepig.org.uk
> Skype: simonbiggsuk
> http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
> 
> Research Professor  edinburgh college of art
> http://www.eca.ac.uk/
> Creative Interdisciplinary Research in CoLlaborative Environments
> http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
> Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice
> http://www.elmcip.net/
> Centre for Film, Performance and Media Arts
> http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/film-performance-media-arts
> 
> 
>> From: "Patricia R. Zimmermann" <patty at ithaca.edu>
>> Reply-To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>> Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 00:07:06 -0400 (EDT)
>> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] prolitariat
>> 
>> 
>> Renate:
>> 
>> Thank you for this report.
>> 
>> I have been thinking of all the Making Sense participants and you and Tim
>> Murray in Paris and Empyre these last few days.  The strikes have been on the
>> front pages of the NYT, and on many listservs and aggregated websites.  They
>> have hit a nerve back here in the States, people are discussing the strikes,
>> and the transportation stoppages.
>> 
>> What are you seeing and experiencing on the ground there?
>> 
>> Are there art actions in the streets?
>> 
>> Are the presenters at the colloquium making sense of protests about the
>> proposed changes in the retirement age as an event that is attempting to make
>> sense of the GEC (global economic collapse)?
>> 
>> Not to tunnel too much into a mise en abyme, but is making sense making sense
>> of making sense?
>> 
>> Patty Zimmermann
>> 
>> -------
>> Patricia R. Zimmermann, Ph.D.
>> Professor, Cinema, Photography and Media Arts
>> Roy H. Park School of Communications
>> Codirector, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival
>> Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies
>> 953 Danby Road
>> Ithaca College
>> Ithaca, New York 14850 USA
>> Office: +1 (607) 274 3431
>> FAX: +1 (607) 274 7078
>> http://faculty.ithaca.edu/patty/
>> http://www.ithaca.edu/fleff
>> BLOG: http://www.ithaca.edu/fleff10/blogs/open_spaces/
>> patty at ithaca.edu
>> 
>> 
>> ---- Original message ----
>>> Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 10:16:49 -0400
>>> From: empyre-bounces at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au (on behalf of Renate Ferro
>>> <rtf9 at cornell.edu>)
>>> Subject: [-empyre-] prolitariat
>>> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>>> 
>>>   In our jet-lagged state Tim and I spent a day and a
>>>   half in the Making Sense Colloquium held at the
>>>   Georges Pompidou Center and the **Institut Telecom.
>>>   Paris is in the middle of a social crisis prompted
>>>   by a major labor strike against the government due
>>>   to its potential plan to change the age of
>>>   retirement from 60 years to 62 years of age. French
>>>   philosopher Bernard Steigler the Director of the
>>>   Institute of Recherche and Innnovaion at the
>>>   Pompidou Center addressed the Colloquium the first
>>>   morning citing the twentieth century as the century
>>>   of the Proletariat. **Steigler also cited the work
>>>   of Duchamp and Beuys as figures to consider **in the
>>>   discussion about Making Sense, Faire Sense. His talk
>>>   entitled Art, Territory, Epoque Individuation of
>>>   Post consumerism and Post Modernism made no mention
>>>   of the strikes outside in the streets of Paris.
>>>   **For Steigler criticality is a faculty of the
>>>   sensing process and at the core of the creative
>>>   process, but was blatantly absent from **also was
>>>   absent in many of many of the **disparate
>>>   presentations. **
>>>   We have had very limited access to the internet but
>>>   will post more later today and also introduce to you
>>>   three more presenters who will hopefully give the
>>>   empyre subscribers a clearer idea of what the
>>>   Colloquium is attempting to do.**
>>>   Renate
>>> ________________
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> 
> 
> 
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> 
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> 



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