Phil Willis: Universities should halt the hysteria and face the reality of their finances

Yet according to Michael Arthur, the vice-chancellor of neighbouring Leeds University, it has taken "more than 800 years to create one of the world's greatest education systems and it looks like it will take just six months to bring it back to its knees".

So perhaps Leeds Carnegie should hand back the money and begin sponsoring Leeds Met instead?

The reason for such academic hysteria and hyperbole (usually reserved for politicians prior to an election) is the decision by the Government to reduce higher education budgets by 2.5bn.

According to Professor Arthur, it is based on a "prediction" by the Institute of Fiscal Studies that in order to halve the current fiscal deficit by 2013, a further 1.6bn of cuts will be required on top of the 915m announced both in the pre-Budget Report and by Lord Mandelson as part of his departmental savings.

That cuts to the higher education budgets would have a significant impact is not questioned – my personal concern is that any raid on our science research or teaching budgets could seriously hamper the UK and Yorkshire's ability to compete in the post-recession global economy.

What I do question is the naivety of well respected academics who believe that governments can be frightened into reversing cuts by such over-the-top assertions.

Lord Mandelson's response was clear – dismissing the speculative claims, he argued that "a positive view makes a virtue of fiscal necessity" and that "tighter budgets can be a spur to further diversifying the funding of British universities".

Given that the taxpayer

spends 12.3bn on higher education, a 25 per cent growth in funding since 1999, I suggest most members of the public would argue that the sector should accept its share of the current public sector contraction.

Furthermore, David Willetts, the Tory shadow spokesperson who hankers to be the university supremo in May, has made it clear the Conservatives would not reverse the cuts and "would encourage universities to reduce overheads by relying more on charitable donations".

Since 1963, we have seen constant growth in higher education both in terms of institutions and student numbers. In the past 15 years, largely since our former polytechnics became universities, there has been a 47 per cent increase in students. We may not have hit Tony Blair's target of 50 per cent of all 18-30 year olds in higher education but the plan (despite the present recession) is to grow the sector even more.

Lord Leitch in his 2006 report said we must aim for a 40 per cent graduate workforce by 2020 and the current planning of the UK Commission for Education and Skills wants the UK to go further and become the eighth most graduate intensive nation in the world. This is despite unemployment figures showing 22 per cent of male graduates and 13 per cent of female graduates are out of work. While it is true that graduates are far more likely to gain employment as we come out of recession, will they do so in areas where their graduate skills are fully utilised? In our dash for growth, many young people find they are "overqualified and under employed" – the phrase used by one Greenwich academic.

Despite our higher education system being truly world class in terms of research output, publications and citations where incidentally we even outperform the US, we have never addressed three core issues: what are our universities for, how should they be organised and then how should they be funded? The last real attempt to do so by the late Lord Dearing in 1997 was quickly abandoned by David Blunkett and current attempts by the Government to belatedly ask these questions are more to do with stalling any discussion about student fees until after the General Election.

Now is the time is ask the most challenging questions. Do we abandon the universality of the system and concentrate more of our research funding in an Ivy League of research intensive universities? Do we take up Lord Mandelson's challenge of teaching degrees in two rather than three years? Do we encourage the highly successful further education sector to deliver more undergraduate courses? Do we restructure on the basis of the US community college model allowing local access with transfer to regional universities via the credit accumulation and transfer route? Or do we encourage a growth of private sector providers?

While Michael Arthur is right to highlight the dilemma over funding, and right to point out that the UK lags well behind most of our global competitors in our spend on higher education, I hope he now turns the spotlight on how the sector itself can meet the challenges faced by the recession. To do so is far more challenging and far more worthy than exaggerated abuse, no matter how well intended.