Education and Science, Financial Services, Latvia

Students insist that funding for higher education must not be reduced anymore at all. 20% budget cuts will make it impossible for the universities in Latvia to further develop and improve, whereas 30% to 40% budget cuts will severely damage the quality of the universities' functions.

Reduced funding would lead to poorer higher education quality and worsening social situation for students, which would make a large number of future students leave Latvia or choose not to study at all, which would have a negative effect on the country's intellectual potential, the Student Union points out.

"The higher education sector was already strongly affected by the previous budget cuts; reducing financing for universities by another 30 to 40% will cause irreversible damage to higher education quality and make Latvian higher education system lose competitiveness in comparison with neighbor countries' universities," the Student Union President Anna Cirule underlines.