I guess quite a few people will know that CYM* have had a major reduction in the places it has to offer next year. Until yesterday though I had not comprehended the scale and implications of this (both for CYM specifically and for university places in general).
Nationally the government has reduced the money it pays per student by 10% and even more seriously, capped the number of students each university can take, with severe financial penalties if this number is exceeded. This is a dramatic shift from the policy of increasing the number of young people who go to university. A policy which the universities have been investing in and gearing up to.
For CYM as an external provider linked to a university that has to make job and course cuts, their resultant number cap has been more dramatic. CYM will not be able to offer places to those who last year would have sailed in, also churches that have advertised and only now found a potential worker/student no longer have a course for them to go to.
On the basis of the very streamlined intake CYM will, I should think, have to radically re-engineer, in the medium term, to continue.
Looking wider as well though, August and September could be really tough for those who get their A level results with significantly less university places, and in some cases, courses that no longer exist. The clearing process may have very little to offer this year.
Young people are already bearing the brunt of growing unemployment, this dramatic change of policy is only going to make that worse!
*Centre for Youth Ministry
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