An extra 20,000 university places will be available in England this September on science, maths, engineering and technology degree courses, the chancellor Alistair Darling announced in the budget today.

Darling told the Commons that the cost of the "one-off" places would be £270m and would come, in part, from switching resources from existing budgets and higher revenues from taxes on bankers bonuses.

This will ease what has been predicted to be record competition for university places this summer. Applications in February were up almost a fifth on last year, the university admissions service, Ucas, said.

So far, more than 570,000 students have applied for a place at university this autumn, an increase of more than 100,000 on the same time in 2009. Applications close in June. University leaders have predicted that more than 200,000 would-be students will be left without a place.

But last time extra places were made available for science, technology, engineering and maths courses, in July, it caused outrage because universities were not given more money to teach the extra 10,000 students. The funds only covered grants and loans for the students.

Today's extra places include teaching costs.

Universities will bid for the places and the £270m will cover students through every year of their degree, a spokeswoman from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has confirmed.

Darling said: "These extra places allow us to strengthen our offer to our young people and ease parents' concern that their child's first taste of life after school or college will be a prolonged spell in the dole queue. We have seen in past recessions what a waste of potential this was and the long-term damage it caused."

The chancellor also announced £35m to stimulate money-making from inventions in universities. The University Enterprise Capital Fund will help academics and graduates start up businesses from their scientific discoveries...>> Read More

Source: The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/mar/24/budget-2010-university-places