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Top actors warn cash crisis may cut access to drama schools
The Guardian
|January 11, 2025
World-leading drama schools in England face a financial crisis that threatens to shut down opportunities for talented young people from diverse and less privileged backgrounds, according to leading figures in the arts.
The warning came after Bristol Old Vic theatre school (BOVTS), which opened in 1946 with the support of Laurence Olivier, revealed it was closing all undergraduate courses from September. Postgraduate studies will continue.
Another leading institution was offering its staff voluntary redundancy, while a higher education expert said the situation facing drama schools was so dire it risked becoming "a national catastrophe".
Nick Hillman, the director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said many of the affected smaller specialist colleges were world leading in their field yet struggled to balance their books. Courses are expensive to deliver because of a high student to staff ratio and the lack of economies of scale enjoyed by larger institutions.
"It risks becoming a national catastrophe for these institutions that specialise in areas where the UK is traditionally top notch," said Hillman.
This story is from the January 11, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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