Halls of pain
The boom is over for student accommodation developers as the recession and budget cuts hit universities
On 21 June thousands of students and professors across the UK took to the streets, in the education sector’s largest and most high-profile protest. The next day chancellor George Osborne announced a departmental budget cut of 25% over the next four years, which could result in a £1.4bn reduction in the education budget.
The UK’s 2.5 million students are already among the recession’s biggest victims. Now 200,000 school leavers could lose out on a place next year, as specialist courses and student places are cut at 70% of universities. Reading and the University of Leeds have already put a freeze on their 2010/11 intake …