The old system helped support universities like SOAS. But the school has struggled in a more competitive environment
FOR A YOUNGSTER in search of a grounding in the languages of Austronesia, say, or perhaps Tibetan or Sinhalese, London’s School of Oriental and African Studies has long been the place to go. Founded in 1916 to train colonial administrators, military officers and the odd spy, the university came to be home to scholars with knowledge of the most obscure corners of the globe, as well as experts on rising countries like China and India.
Today 4,345 students from more than 130 countries study courses varying from global pop music to accounting and finance. Since the 1960s the erstwhile colonial training centre has been a hub of radical politics . It also represents a type of university—small, specialist and focused on languages—that has struggled in recent years. Since 2016 undergraduate admissions have fallen by 37%.
The main problem is that SOAS has struggled in a more competitive environment. The old system of state grants helped support universities that did a lot of language teaching. Nowadays most of their funding comes from tuition fees, and since 2015 universities have been free to recruit as many students as they want. In the words of an internal SOAS memo, rival high-ranking institutions “went growth-mad”, with King’s College and Queen Mary University London hoovering up students.
The university promises measures to turn things around, including investments in the estate, better teaching and more overseas education. It says that applications for next year are looking perkier. Yet after last year’s disastrous admissions cycle, an extra £2.6m had to be cut from academic staffing costs by 2021-22, on top of planned cuts of £3.4m since 2017-18. If things don’t improve, SOAS may have to lay on fewer courses, or perhaps even be absorbed by another institution.
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