Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has promised to defund “woke” university degrees in Britain, arguing they have provided “little value” to the taxpaying public.
Shadow Education Secretary Suella Braverman said this week that a Reform government would cut student loans for degrees in gender studies, social justice, critical race theory, queer studies, and other “woke” subjects at British universities.
“Young people have been conned into tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt for degrees that too often leave them with poor job prospects while taxpayers are left footing the bill,” Braverman told The Telegraph. “Meanwhile, our economy is crying out for home-grown engineers, scientists, technicians, builders and skilled tradespeople.”
The Reform education spokeswoman said that if students wanted to attend such programmes, they would have to pay for them themselves rather than receive taxpayer support.
Meanwhile, to incentivise universities to perform, Braverman also said that “persistently failing universities offering poor-quality provision” would be stripped of their publicly-funded student finance subsidies.
In contrast to the left-wing ethos which has dominated British education in recent years, the Nigel Farage-led party has also vowed to “ensure British children are not indoctrinated in schools, that they learn of Britain’s great and proud history.”
Reform has also committed to “defend free speech, uphold British traditions, ban DEI quotas, and reject the politics of guilt.”
According to The Telegraph, so-called gender studies programmes are typically featured as postgraduate degrees in the United Kingdom. The broadsheet said it had identified over 35 such programmes offered as Master’s or PhD degrees at universities across Britain.
The paper noted that students seeking a Master’s degree are eligible for government loans of over £13,000 per year, while PhD students can receive loans of up to £30,000.
British universities have been at the forefront of advancing far-left academic ideologies, particularly in the “decolonise the curriculum” movement. This has seen British universities become leading attack dogs in the attempt to tear down British culture, heritage, and history in favour of modernist multiculturalism.
For example, in 2024, the University of Nottingham removed the term “Anlgo-Saxon” from British literature and history courses in a bid to reduce “nationalist narratives” surrounding the topic.
That same year, academics at the University of Sheffield were granted nearly £1.5 million in taxpayer funds to conduct a study on the “white-centricity” of folk music in England and how to “decolonise” the songs.
Great works of British literature have also frequently come under fire from modern academics, with classics such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales being slapped with “trigger warnings” for having “expressions of Christian faith”.