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If rates are the same for all subjects, the humanities departments can benefit, says Jonathan Wolff - but the creative arts and social sciences may suffer some

In one of the first columns I wrote for this newspaper, in 2006, told me the story of expansion curious involuntary university philosophy departments in the 1990s. In the 1980s, the government of Margaret Thatcher introduced a form of internal cost accounting in the universities, and everyone expects that the arts and humanities to grind to a halt during our disastrous effects in the coffers of the university was revealed. However, for the perverse pleasure of us in the humanities, which demonstrated that the sums could turn a good profit from classroom subjects such as English, history and philosophy. This resulted in a small explosion that some departments have even doubled in size.

Labour government has taken things in their natural order. A late fee of playing with bands and research funds rejigging returned most of the arts and humanities departments in deficit. We walked through the cloister with its head down. We have a stomach ache before the Finance Committee meetings, where murmured our gratitude to our colleagues in science and medicine to put in our begging bowls. The presidents said it was useful to subsidize us to preserve the old idea of ??the university, regardless of the Philistines in the government wanted.

In truth, however, the arts and humanities departments have always attracted the most students. Always produce an international investigation admired, and some of them have even read that the semi-mythical beast, worship reader. But what will happen to us when the next round of cuts bite? Can we still be saved? If the humanities are, we will take the industry down with us. Or at least we'll try.

But I bleed, I visited a few universities recently, and despite what we read in the newspapers, even, sometimes, this time, rumors are not exactly what one could s' wait. CFOs are finding a little simple arithmetic rather exciting.

While the future has in store? Oxford and Cambridge will have great difficulty taking more students, unless they stop students promising rooms and start building new halls of residence. The rest of the group can expect Russell to try to extend the humanities. But the inevitable effect is that the humanities departments of the lowest in the hierarchy will fight to attract students score decent, and below that which could have serious recruitment problems, the number of places on the increase higher.

And there is another factor that gives us chills. The ordinary market economy tells us that where there is above average benefits obtained, new suppliers eager to rush in. In the 1980s, it would have been unthinkable, but now the private sector is at the door.

If the mark of prestige of the great universities will avoid competition remains to be seen. Maybe things will not be very different. Or maybe we really are about to enter a period of unprecedented change. Anyway, we are in the beginnings of a case study for the future of the business school. If there is, for example.

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