The Engineering Professors’ Council welcomes the ever-wider recognition among applicants of the value of a degree in engineering (“Applications for degrees in engineering rise sharply”, Report, February 14), but sadly, this is unlikely to help meet the UK’s shortage of graduate engineers.
Engineering degrees are among the most costly degree programmes to run, involving long contact hours of teaching, and expensive facilities.
In our recent submission to the comprehensive spending review, we estimated that the average cost is almost twice the funding available. Given the financial challenges across the higher education sector, many universities simply cannot afford to admit more domestic engineering students. Each additional student would make their losses worse.
The only way to expand capacity is to increase the international student intake and use their higher fees to subsidise more places for UK students. However, with international demand under pressure, this is an option for only a few universities.
Johnny Rich
Chief Executive, The Engineering Professors’ Council
London SE5, UK
