A University of the Real World should be a Labour priority

By Jim Sweetman / @jimbo9848

Leaving aside David Willetts’ oily platitudes and the obvious embarrassment of Nick Clegg and Vince Cable it is time for people to stand up and state the unpalatable truth. University education is in a complete mess. Widening participation has, unsurprisingly, increased costs and the Browne Review and the government’s response is set to increase them still further with the result that student debt is reaching absurd proportions.

As a society, what are we teaching our future talent about financial management by suggesting that a debt of nearly £30,000 plus whatever they borrow for maintenance makes sense? What are we thinking of doing in levying interest at commercial rates on the money we’ve loaned to students to pay for their education? Would we do the same to help people go to independent schools? And, how dare we sustain the stupid pretence that by making some of these figures a little bit lower we will close the socio-economic gap in access to education. And, finally, what is the government doing by making out that some degrees in some subjects are better than others? We need to stand back and take a hard look at the university offer and the costs.

The question to start with is what is a university education all about? A hundred years ago it was a place for toffs who were going to go and join the civil service or the colonial service or, perhaps, go into politics or work in a university as a lecturer or researcher. We need to mention that because the so-called elite universities sometimes behave as if this is still the case. They haven’t changed much over the years and haven’t responded sufficiently to change in society.

In 1963, when the Robbins Report first advocated a massive expansion of university education it failed to change the model despite an upsurge in the numbers of technological universities and colleges pioneering new approaches. To put it bluntly, what happened was that that the established system took over the new and imposed its practices. What did that mean? It meant that most degree courses were at least three years in duration, that universities saw themselves as research as much as teaching institutions, that the pedagogical approach of mass lectures and smaller seminars with limited teaching contact time and long vacations persisted and that most universities were partly residential and assumed that students would live away from home. This classical practice suited the universities very well and if subsequent governments bought into the model than they were willing to pay the price. It suited students as well who lived a subsidised, and liberal, lifestyle with, in truth, not that much academic work to do and plenty of time, allegedly, to think. One consequence has been the rise of the Student Union subsidised first by the universities and then by bar sales and their own enterprise.

And that is the current pattern. Three years away from home with the first year often paternalistically overseen in halls of residence and a lot of drinking and socialising, limited direct teaching and amateurish examinations along the way (that most people pass) coupled with a final assessment which doesn’t actually say very much about what anyone can do or not do in future employment. When the state paid for most of it, there was a cosy conspiracy between the providing universities, the beneficiaries of university education who now had the levers of power and an aspiring middle class who drove demand as a badge of their achievement.

And, as many writers have noted, there are emotional attachments. University has always been a rite of passage as well as an easy pathway into adulthood and employment. Once upon a time, there were even a whole set of graduate employment opportunities waiting at the end. It is this faded film which all of the stakeholders still hanker after in complete disregard of social and economic realities.

So, what has changed? First of all, economic reality is biting hard and so is the market. If a university can get enough people to pay £9000 a year for one of its courses why settle for £6000? Add on the maintenance costs and student loans and debts of £40,000 will be commonplace. Add commercial rates of interest to this and longer repayment schedules and the debt gets bigger. If inflation stays under control it remains bigger. Only a few years ago, there were companies in the city which would write off student loans for their new employees but today’s students will be lucky to find jobs at all. Economically, it no longer makes sense to go to university and if you come from a low-income family it is impossible. The sweeteners are simply not sufficient.

Meanwhile, the universities can use the excuse of overall spending cuts, firstly, to raise fees to the maximum and, secondly, to squeeze their own staff and courses. The next few years will not be a good time to be a university lecturer in an arts subject. Universities are commercial, market-driven organisations that want their top slice, so unprofitable courses will go to the wall, the outreach to poor students will be at minimal levels and they will increasingly try to sell their established status to overseas entrants with money. None of this will be good for education.

The second big change is in social expectations. 18-year-olds are typically more independent and better travelled than they were a generation ago. Going to live away from home may be pleasurable but it is not the transition to independent living that it once was. Currently, there is still a clamour for university places fuelled by schools and parental aspirations but, at a certain price, that demand is going to tail off and that means less education for society.

And, worse, the biggest losers are going to be the disadvantaged poor and there is a nasty sting in the tail here in the latest proposals. Yes, the most disadvantaged will get more support but, of course, very few of them will meet the academic requirements because of the link between disadvantage and academic certification. However, the next group up will take the hit. It is the aspirant working class who are going to bear the brunt of these debts – psychological or financial – for a lifetime.

Essentially, there has to be a shift in the dialogue. There is an entitlement to further education and it ought to be free to anybody who wants it but that does not mean universities on this wasteful model. We talk about having a world-class university system but, in practice, our universities are no longer world-class whatever that means. They don’t do cutting-edge research, they don’t prepare people for 21st-century careers, they don’t engage with new understandings about knowledge and these proposals will saddle people with debt instead of preparing them for life.

And, although taxpayers pay for them the universities cherish their independence and autonomy as if that is somehow related to free speech and academic freedom. It isn’t and they ought to be accountable, much more accountable for the way they operate. They need to take on board two-year degrees and part-time study which would cut student debt by one third overnight. They need to talk up sandwich courses as a first-class option and recruit locally. They need to realise the economies of online learning and new pedagogies and they need to work in partnership with local communities and business. They need to develop comparable final assessments where the levels mean something and to work together in terms of course provision regionally and nationally. They need to be politically accountable as well.

That is where Labour has to go as well – in the direction of smart reform which redesigns the offer for a changed world. If only we had a highly talented politician with extensive experience of education and outside the shadow cabinet available to lead a genuine long-term review aimed at securing changes which would benefit society not the system then we might make some progress.