Most planned cuts to higher education have been reversed in a budget passed by the Welsh Assembly.
Finance Minister Jane Hutt announced that £31m of the £42m cuts to the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) mooted will no longer take place. The £42m figure feared by many in the sector would have been around a third of the entire HEFCW budget.
The funding body will now keep £21.1m which was set to be diverted to tuition fee subsidies, and an additional £10m to support part-time study and research.
Professor Colin Riordan, Universities Wales chair and Cardiff University vice-chancellor, says he is now “more confident that Welsh universities will be able to manage in the short term until future challenges can be faced”.