Two of the highlights of my job are teaching MSc students and the supervision of PhD students (click here), who have typically come from an MSc course. One of the problems facing British universities is that there is inadequate funding for students to undertake taught postgraduate courses as well as PhDs. There is no systematic funding of postgraduate study as there is with undergraduate degrees, with the result that many bright but poor students are unable to take taught postgraduate courses or do a PhD. In addition, there is a real fear that those who are now paying up to £9,000 fees per annum will not have the appetite or ability to fund postgraduate study whenever they graduate in 2014/15, which deprives the UK of highly-trained specialists and future academics. You can read more about this impending crisis and funding gap here.
