This post was written by an anonymous mature student at the UEA.

A few weeks ago the Augar Review into the funding of post-18 education was released. While its focus was on undergraduate fees and the wider further education sector, the ramifications of the review reach out further than one level of the higher education sector due to the very nature of the proposals and their effect upon PhD funding, and the courses that Associate Tutors teach on.

The headline proposal for the review is the lowering of tuition fees from £9,250 to £7,500 per year for all undergraduate students. While this sounds heavily enticing for undergrads who have been paying these ridiculously high fees since 2012, the cutting in fees will not be replaced with any further funding for the universities, meaning that they will find themselves with a £1,750 per student blackhole in their finances. When universities look to fill this hole, the first cuts will come to funding that doesn’t boost their rating under the Research Excellence Framework (REF), of which the metrics are skewed towards STEM rather than the Arts and Humanities. This combination of funding cuts and frameworks that are bias towards the STEM will see the number of funding opportunities drop for researchers in the Arts and Humanities, forcing them to rely on the PhD loans that the government offers or self-funding, both of which come with their own stressful implications. This is why it’s exceptionally galling that PhD funding is only mentioned once within the report, with a cursory reference to loans as an option for funding, but entirely failing to draw any links between the cuts and the likely uptake in government loans.

The knock-on effects go further than a decrease in funding opportunities. The fees of Arts and Humanities students at all levels is siphoned off towards the cost of STEM courses instead of ensuring that the departments within Arts and Humanities schools are sufficiently funded, meaning they are often on the edge when it comes to covering the cost of their own courses. A decrease in funding has the knock-on effect of staff and module cuts in an attempt to make up the black hole in their finances. Associate Tutors are the frontline staff that will see their jobs cut, with postgraduate researchers who teach being given less opportunities as the course become streamlined towards employability and ease of teaching for full-time staff. This is in spite of that fact that many ATs rely on teaching to be able to live, and use it for the experience in the next level of their careers even though it often involves accepting exceptionally poor contracts and even poorer working conditions. This will be compounded even further when institutions looks to merge departments or outright close them, something of which UEA has a sad history. This creates a perfect storm where PGRs face being limited in being able to earn both experience and money to be able to survive in a sector that is doing its utmost to make this as difficult as possible.

All this comes at a time when programs such as The Honesty Project has identified that PGRs face high amounts of stress that impact their mental health while studying and working, and other programs such as The Courage Project look to try and nullify the effect that the these stresses have on PGRs. These projects become even more important if and when the review is put into place, due to its complete failure to look past the undergraduate level of higher education or consider the wide-ranging impacts any changes at this level would have on other levels of the HE sector. As a whole, the review completely fails PGRs in every way possible and should be rebuked by every institution that represents them.

While this may all sound incredibly bleak, there are already moves within the sector to challenge the review and make it worthwhile, with the UCU describing it as a failure. The UCU are extremely active on our campus, fighting against casualisation and for PGR rights, as well as offering free membership to employed PGRs. They will be an exceptionally important player in fighting against this review and its after-effects, as well as in helping to ensure the Courage Project is successful, so if you haven’t joined as a member, join today to ensure not only a  healthier, more vibrant future for PGRs, but also for the entire sector.