The latest news in terms of UK higher education is that there is to be a "New College of the Humanities" established in London, something that has caught the news very quickly. The New College is a private institution that is apparently for-profit but has established also a trust that has charitable status and a fifth of the places at the College will be assisted, which does not mean they will all be free. The basic fee will be £18,000 per annum which is twice the highest fee allowed in the standard state sector and some of the assisted places will have a fee cap of £7, 200 per annum whilst others will not have to pay fees. The College degrees will be treated as external awards of the University of London which will enable the students of it to borrow up to £6,000 a year in loans from the state to part-pay their fees.
A number of philosophers are involved in this initiative including the head of the College, Professor Anthony Grayling. As Mary Beard points out many of the lead names involved with the College are getting on in years and there appears to be no initial plans for post-graduate provision though this may simply be an effect of the initial statement of the College outline. As Beard adds, the College, whilst presented as an alternative to Oxbridge also has a narrower range of subjects offered than traditional public universities and is more akin to a US liberal arts college.
Put in the US context it is true, as Brian Leiter writes, that the fees of the new College are not high though they certainly are by UK standards. Meanwhile, others are involved in trying to organise against the College on the grounds that it effectively helps to entrench unequal access to higher education and is part of a general agenda that began with the Browne report into higher education.
The College includes an impressive roster of names though the mechanics of how they will interact with the student body is something that remains to be seen. There is no doubt that the launching of the College is part of the general move away from government underpinning of the education system though in principle its institution is not distinct from that of other universities in the country since no university is an official "state" entity here in the UK (given their autonomous status). It is distinct in being founded on the basis of private money and also in being focused so specifically on the humanities, including philosophy though this latter part is unusual in a way that I (unlike Mary Beard) don't see as bad.
The changes in the UK university system as a whole are what is most important since the undermining of research and the pressure on humanities in many universities (particularly those founded since 1992) are long-term trends that are pernicious in their effects. These trends ensure that there will be a narrower social base that engages with philosophy and humanities on the one hand and that less new work will be carried out in universities of many kinds on the other. The long-term effect of the establishment of this College, on the other hand, is hard to see as being as significant in its impact as these trends are. The College is a simple institution of privilege in the sense that the majority of its students will be there because they can pay.
Private education is not in itself a new phenomena in Britain given the presence of so many schools here that charge fees. What we have is an extension into the university sector of a model that has had a very long life in the "Public Schools" and which replicates models of education that are far from uncommon outside the UK. This point shows the reason why the establishment of NCH is unlikely to be widely met with a fierce response (though there are sure to be protests against it) but its arrival does illustrate further the rapid fading in the UK of a university model that was, for a brief moment, open to all.
There is a very good posting over at EAS Manchester addressing the ways in which the implementation of the Browne report will harm higher education in general and humanities in particular. It is useful to pull out from this posting the following crucial points that can sometimes get lost or receive insufficient emphasis:
1.The Arts and Humanities Research Council is directing funding for research into areas that have been determined for it by central government which includes research on the government idea of the so-called "Big Society".
2. The British Academy has ended the small grants scheme that was particularly heavily used in research in fine art.
3. There is increasing pressure to push humanities research that is connected to business, something that will ensure the marginalisation of research in all kinds of areas. In philosophy, it impacts on everyone who is not engaged in applied ethics programmes and even they will be pushed in a very specific direction.
4. There is virtually no support within the universities for the very notion of "impact", something on which the government is silent as it is has generally been in response to the criticisms that have been made of the Browne report's de-emphasis of humanities research in general.
It is clearly the case that humanities research, if carried out anywhere other than a select elite of institutions, will be increasingly difficult to sustain. Under these pressures, it is perhaps unsurprising that many of us are determined either to leave the university to pursue research elsewhere or are desperately trying to make it into the few places that will still deserve the name of "university".
The student demonstrations that culminated in the disturbances at the Conservative Party HQ late last year resulted in a series of prosecutions of campaigners. Amongst these the most high-profile was the case of Ed Woollard who, in the spur of the moment, threw an object from the roof, an incident that received much more attention than the violent actions of the Coalition government. There is now a website that has been set up to protest the sentence Woollard was given and to campaign for his continued education: it can be found here.
The ludicrously entitled Research Excellence Framework is the exercise whereby research in academic disciplines in the UK is measured by panels who determine the level of "quality" of specific research submissions. It is not only the title of the exercise that is ludicrous since the means by which decisions are reached in regard to research submitted is also not apparent and the process by which panel members are selected is further not subject to anything other than a general consultation exercise with academic societies. The actual money available from the exercise can be altered also by arbitrary and late government decisions concerning where the cut-off point for funding should be. So all things considered it is not exactly an exercise that inspires hope for the flourishing of interesting and important work in UK universities. This is why, as reported in an earlier posting, there is a campaign amongst some to boycott the whole exercise.
Nonetheless I am sure many academics in the UK will be interested to scrutinise the names of the latest panelists in their subject areas and I am listing below all the members of the philosophy panel with a brief mention of some of the notable contributions panel members have thus far made to philosophy:
The chair of the panel this time is Alexander Bird from the University of Bristol. Bird's last book was published in 2007 and is entitled Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties and is a contribution to the philosophy of science. His most recent articles also indicate an interest in philosophy of science and analytic metaphysics.
The other panel members are, like Bird, with the exception of two people, Professors though why Professors should, simply by virtue of holding this status be thought better able to assess research "quality" than others is not clear. One of the two who is not a Professor is Julian Baggini who is best known as co-editor of The Philosopher's Magazine and who contributes a great deal to a wider public diffusion of philosophy as is evident in his philosophy monthly. Many of his books are on the same wave-length including the latest, Do They Think You're Stupid? which analyses and responds to "spin doctors". Baggini's inclusion on the panel appears to be part of a response to the "impact" agenda and a demonstration of the "relevance" of philosophy though presumably it is also thought that applied philosophical discussions generally will be ones he can assess. The fact that, in including him, we have someone from outside the university on the panel is an interesting development since, whilst it reflects a welcome understanding that not all philosophy is carried out in the university, it also raises interesting questions concerning why the panel is not therefore also assessing and potentially rewarding contributions that are not generated inside universities.
Nancy Cartwright from the London School of Economics is the next panel member and her last book, published in 2007, was Hunting Causes and Using Them: Approaches in Philosophy and Economics. Her general specialisation, as with Bird, is the philosophy of science though she also is concerned with the notion of "evidence" in "evidence-based policy", something that many a government seems to disregard.
Gregory Currie from the University of Nottingham published in 2010 the work Narratives and Narrators: A Philosophy of Stories and appears to have a major interest in the notion of the imagination and so is likely to be called on to evaluate material in the area of aesthetics.
Nicholas Davey from the University of Dundee is the current President of the British Society for Phenomenology and his last book, published in 2006, was Unquiet Understanding: Gadamer's Philosophical Understanding which is a contribution to hermeneutics. Davey is one of the panel members who is evidently intended to respond to European philosophy specifically.
Katherine Hawley from the University of St. Andrews works mainly in analytical metaphysics and epistemology but also publishes in the area of philosophy of science. Whilst she does not appear to have published a book for sometime she is very active in journal publication.
Cynthia Macdonald from Queen's University Belfast works primarily in philosophy of mind on which she has published a number of book chapters but not, since 2005, any monographs.
Michael Martin from University College London is apparently completing a book on philosophy of perception but is also interested in David Hume.
Catherine Osborne from the University of East Anglia is a specialist in ancient philosophy having published in 2009 two books on the area, one a specialist text on an ancient commentary on Aristotle's physics and the other Dumb Beasts and Dead Philosophers: Humanity and the Humane in Ancient Philosophy and Literature.
Thomas Pink from Kings College London works on free will and moral normativity and has forthcoming a work on moral action. He is also interested in the work of Thomas Hobbes and is editing an edition of the Hobbes-Bramall exchange on free will.
Robert Stern from the University of Sheffield is the editor of the European Journal of Philosophy and current President of the Hegel Society of Great Britain. His most recent book, published in 2009, is Hegelian Metaphysics.
Alison Stone, from Lancaster University, is the second non-Professor on the panel. She is currently working on a book on feminism and psychoanalysis and her last book, published in 2006, was Luce Irigaray and the Philosophy of Sexual Difference.
Raymond Tallis from the University of Manchester is not based in a department of philosophy as his original specialism is medicine and his latest book is Michelangelo's Finger: An Exploration of Everyday Transcendence.
Heather Widdows from the University of Birmingham who works in the general area of global ethics and is editor of the Journal of Global Ethics. She has an introduction to global ethics forthcoming.
Some reflections on the composition of the panel in terms of how it relates to philosophy in general and the academic divisions in the UK are surely in order. Firstly, and most strikingly, there is not a single representative from any of the so-called "new universities" that in 1992 were renamed as such in the wake of the abolition of the previous divide between universities and polytechnics. Given the breadth of the panel in terms of general philosophical interests it is striking that it was not thought to be worth including a single person from this sector of the academy.
Secondly, the gender balance is almost equal with 8 men and 6 women so there was evidently an intention to think in a structural way about the representation of women in philosophy. It is, though, true that only one representative on the panel is a specialist in feminist philosophy and there is no one who appears to have specific interest in any other aspect of gender questions on the panel.
Thirdly, there are interesting imbalances in terms of the specialisms within philosophy. Of the 14 members of the panel only 1 has a specialist background in aesthetics. Not all areas of the history of philosophy are represented and there appears to be no specific attention to history of philosophy in terms of the panel's composition.
There is clear attention to "applied" philosophy and some specialists in the areas of ethics but no one with a specialist background in political philosophy is represented, an odd omission. There are 3 people out of the total 14 who can respond to European philosophy which is a small number. By contrast, philosophy of science, metaphysics and philosophy of mind appear to be areas rather well represented which indicates definite views about which areas of philosophy are expected to be fertile in work of "excellent" quality. It is something of a mystery, at least to me, why it is that there are 2 representatives of what we might term "popular" philosophy on the panel. It is not that this is not a reasonable area of philosophy. Rather, it renders unclear what the panel is assessing as this should broaden the remit outside the university and into other areas in which philosophical activity might be thought to be occurring and from sources who may themselves be outside the university but I have little idea as to how the panel might be able to accomplish this.
Given the general cuts to higher education in the wake of the Browne report it is highly likely, whatever the work of panel members, that the result of the exercise will be much more concentration of research monies into fewer hands.
According to a new report in the Times Higher the weighting of "impact" factors in the exercise will be less than previously thought but will still be assessed in a uniform way across very different disciplines after a pilot exercise was undertaken. The pilot exercise did not include philosophy as a discipline and it remains unclear how it would be assessed in philosophy in general and certain specific areas in particular.
Finally, the destructive work carried out by the Browne report continues to reverberate as reported over at the Brooks Blog where the postponement of the projected White Paper meant to emerge from government concerning implementation of its response to Browne is analysed. Generally the "impact" of Browne itself continues to be one that will merit study concerning the destructive response of the UK political class towards higher education in general and philosophy in particular.
In an article in the latest edition of the New York Review of Books Simon Head makes a number of acute points concerning the source of the directives that are forcing the university system both in the US and the UK towards a quite new model of organisation. There have been scattered protests of "marketisation" and, less strictly accurately, of "privatisation" of the academy now for sometime, but these have increased in the wake of the publication late last year of the Browne report, a report set up by the previous UK government and promoted in particular by the last head of the government department responsible here for universities, none other than the "department of business".
How did it come about that the last government - a Labour government, let's not forget - could have placed responsibility for the universities in a department of business? Getting to grips with such a question is important for understanding the source of the Browne report, the report that has created the environment in which the current Coalition government is implementing changes to the university system, including, most importantly, the complete withdrawal of the block teaching grant for the majority of subjects in the system with the important exception of the so-called "STEM" subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and some unspecified language courses. That all of this was recommended by a committee established by the last government is of some significance since the driving of the logic of its recommendations has certainly not come from new research.
What Simon Head reveals very well is that the background to the Browne report can be found in a series of articles published during the 1990s in the Harvard Business Review. The key notion that was presented in these articles was that of the balanced scorecard, a new method of measuring business activity meant to go beyond the traditional focus on revenues, net profits and return on investment. In this approach the concern shifts to relations with customers, internal business procedures, financial indicators such as profit and loss and indicators of "innovation and learning". The stress on the latter has been key to the transformation in the relationship between universities and government.
The vocabulary of "metrics", "impact assessment", "indicators of esteem" and "units of assessment" has arisen from this shifted direction of attention on the part of government. Towards the end of the last Labour government one of the factors that contributed to the placing of universities under the regime of the department of business was the attention in particular to "impact" assessment. The introduction of this notion into the assessment of research was self-consciously presented by the government as a way of ensuring that research had a clear connection to the demands of business and was not seen to be directed to internally academic concerns.
Essentially the universities thus become understood as simply a research tool of the enterprise that is known as UK PLC. As Simon Head points out this has specific implications for science research since following the demands of business there has a special meaning. It means following the dictates and concerns of the pharmaceutical industry. This has some clear specific dangers to research which thus becomes understood through the prism of what best suits such industry not through the demands that would naturally arise within the research itself.
With regard to the rest of the university the regime will doubtless drive research again in very specific directions. It isn't true that philosophy research cannot be effected by this as many think. For example, the University of Sheffield has its primary philosophy research centre named and funded by the Hang Seng Bank of Hong Kong. Whilst less brazen than this the direction of research at some other universities is also directly governed by the prospect of attracting research grants from a wider orbit than government in a number of places such as is apparent at the Centre for Professional Ethics at the University of Central Lancashire and the interest in related areas such as business ethics is part of this phenomena as is the general explosion in the areas of practical ethics and applied ethics.
The research assessment system in the UK is almost certainly going to soon end in its current form with a likely focus on giving most money to those who already have most resources and an ever-increasing stress on driving research, in all subjects and at all levels, in directions that are most likely to produce non-government revenue. The follow-on from research in the area of management studies suggests that the university is being re-thought from top to bottom as an increasingly integrated sector of the market economy. The talk of "privatisation" is not relevant to either analysis of it or any prospects of resistance to it. The analysis should centre on the nature of this change, a change that will ensure that any areas of "pure research" will be marginalised and confined to "top schools" whilst making the relationship to the private sector in terms of research provision the central question for any academics free enough to pursue research.
Two points emerge from serious consideration of this. Firstly, anyone hoping to understand the change in the university is well advised to begin learning management theory and working through its application to the running of their institution. Secondly, the key point in the imposition of this model to the running of universities has been the fragmentation and passivity of the university response. The sectoral divisions that lead the Russell Group to adopt positions quite at variance to those of Million+ ensure that successive British governments are likely to continue to redefine the university in the image of a corporation. Amongst the central trends in this will be the continued casualisation of large parts of the university work-force, the further introduction of degree programmes with direct linkages to industry and the redefinition of philosophy as a subject that can help sharpen the imperatives of management outside the university. Resistance has to centre on more than protection of research areas that don't fit such a model although this is certainly important. It has to consist in the development of a critically different image of the point of university education though one of the key problems in such an approach has been the willingness of academics to invoke tired models from the past. Unless a different vision to the corporate one can be provided that shows the continuing viability of an education that puts the market more at a distance than governments now seem to desire then it will become increasingly likely that academics will be "providers" of a "service" for "consumers" of "innovation".
So the deed has been done. Yesterday the British Parliament passed, by a narrow majority of 21, the decision to increase tuition fees up to a proposed current maximum of £9000, a tripling of the present rate. This action was taken in defiance of a widespread movement of protests, occupations, demonstrations, petitions, letter writing and against the express stance of one of the coalition partners. The Liberal Democrats stood at the general election earlier this year on a policy of abolition of tuition fees, something that was included in their party manifesto and backed up by personal signed pledges issued by each candidate to the electorate in their constituencies. Not only is this the case but it is also true that all those Liberal Democrat MPs who voted for the raise in tuition fees did so in open and direct defiance of their own party policy as expressed as recently as 2009 at the party conference.
There can be no question that there is nothing democratic about yesterday's parliamentary vote. None of the Liberal Democrat MPs had any mandate to vote in favour of this policy either from the electorate as a whole or from their own party members. In voting in favour of it nonetheless they have broken trust and set themselves at variance with the majority of staff and students who have expressed opposition to this policy. To add to their shame, only Vince Cable, the cabinet minister with responsibility for universities, was capable of speaking in favour of the policy. A further 27 Liberal Democrat MPs voted in favour of it as well. A majority of these are on the so-called "payroll" vote, being direct members of the government. A full list of all the guilty men and women follows with the ministers distinguished (*):
Danny Alexander (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) * (Chief Secretary to the Treasury)
Norman Baker (Lewes)*
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-Upon-Tweed)
Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley)
Tom Brake (Carshalton & Wallington)
Jeremy Browne (Taunton Deane)*
Malcolm Bruce (Gordon)
Paul Burstow (Sutton & Cheam)*
Vince Cable (Twickenham)* (Secretary of State for Business)
Alistair Carmichael (Orkney & Shetland)*
Nick Clegg (Sheffield Hallam)* (Deputy Prime Minister)
Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton)*
Lynne Featherstone (Hornsey & Wood Green)* (Equalities Minister and her maiden speech was in opposition to tuition fees, a particularly bad case)
Don Foster (Bath)
Stephen Gilbert (St Austell & Newquay)
Duncan Hames (Chippenham)
Nick Harvey (North Devon)*
David Heath (Somerton & Frome)*
John Hemming (Birmingham Yardley)
Norman Lamb (Norfolk North)*
David Laws (Yeovil)
Michael Moore (Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk)* (Secretary of State for Scotland)
Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove)*
Jo Swinson (Dunbartonshire East)
Sarah Teather (Brent Central)*
David Ward (Bradford East)
Steve Webb (Thornbury & Yate)*
Additionally the following abstained which is equivalent to a vote in favour since it makes it easier for the vote to pass and is in no way a serious signal of dissent:
Lorely Burt (Solihull)
Martin Hurwood (Cheltenham)
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey & Old Southwark)
Tessa Munt (Wells)
Sir Robert Smith (Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine)
John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross)
Stephen Williams (Bristol West)
All those who voted directly in favour have directly contravened pledges to constituents, broken party policy and violated the terms of the manifesto on which they were elected. Those who abstained helped those who voted against and are simply collaborators with them. Those who had the courage to stand by their party policy and endorse the pledges made to their constituents have no business remaining in the same party as the traitors prepared to vote for this measure. There should now be a serious and open breach with the clique of Clegg and Cable.
Since it is unlikely that this will happen the only resource for democrats in this situation is civil disobedience. None of the MPs listed above has any right to respect and should be met with contempt. The Liberal Democrats have violated any right to trust and made clear they have no right to either the name "liberal" or "democrat". No progressive person can support a party that has behaved in this manner: it is a party that deserves to be destroyed.
It is, to say the least, very unusual for higher education to feature highly in political discussions in the UK. The general election was fought recently here with two of the main political parties refusing to say anything much of consequence about it, referring only to the forthcoming Browne review as something whose conclusions they would consider. Partly as a consequence the Liberal Democrats succeeded in garnering some support and popularity across the sector simply by virtue of having a policy. This was helped by the fact that one of the aspects of this policy involved resistance to any increases in the cost of higher education and a history of having resisted efforts to impose fees on students in Scotland.
All has changed here now. Firstly, on entering the coalition government, the Liberals allowed it to be the case that the pledge not to increase tuition fees was laid to rest in the agreement forming the coalition. Secondly, after the Browne report was published, they were the party that allowed it to be the case that fees would, after all, not only be raised but tripled despite having pledged to abolish them. All of this has now come home to roost as the party suffers more opprobrium over this issue from the campaigns that have been formed in defence of education than their coalition partners.
Secondly, there is now a proliferation of groups that are campaigning in support of public education. One of the latest, the Campaign for the Public University, has the signal merit of being formed in explicit opposition to the marketisation of education that was the key principle of the Browne report. This ensures that its' campaigns are particularly worth attention and support.
Meanwhile, as the Liberal Democrats fray at the edges and appear ready to go into meltdown, it is perhaps finally time that higher education has reached the point of being a political issue that cannot be ignored or side-lined in future general elections.
Yesterday marked the third day of action against the education cuts and the second occasion that this led to demonstrations and actions in a number of distinct places. Demonstrations were held in London, Bristol, Edinburgh, Manchester, Newcastle, Liverpool and Brighton and occupations of university buildings have gathered apace. The occupations have even managed to secure some national news coverage. There has though been some concern about police tactics at some demonstrations, particularly in London.
The suggestion that the proposed changes to university finance are dictated by the pressures of dealing with the UK national deficit is quite untrue as that case has been comprehensively exploded. Another interesting development in recent protests has been the tendency to link the argument against the government's proposals with a campaign against corporate tax-dodging, a campaign began by UK Uncut. Students have been leaving occupations and organising flash mob sit-ins at shops and corporations on whom there is evidence of tax avoidance.
Since it is expected there will be a vote on the government's proposals for student finance prior to Christmas it is important that occupations stay solid and that the pressure is kept up. The government is far from solid on this issue, consistent pressure could yet work!
Yesterday there was a solid demonstration in London against the approach of the UK government towards higher education. As discussed previously the general approach involves abandonment of direct government responsibility for funding of higher education by abolishing the teaching grant to the vast majority of subject areas saving only a select few so-called "priority" areas. Over 50,000 people gathered yesterday to protest and the day climaxed in the take-over of Millbank, the building in which the Conservative Party is housed. The general passion of the crowds gathered was very impressive, the turn-out was twice what the National Union of Students had predicted and the atmosphere was one in which the sell-out of the Liberal Democrats was particularly high-lighted by protestors. The day was generally successful in showing the beginning of a mobilised resistance against the government plans and NUS plans to specifically target Liberal Democrat MPs given that they are currently intending to break an election pledge.
It has to be said that all this is deeply encouraging, showing, as it does, that many people are passionate about education and angry with the government. Protesting the proposed policies is essential to maintaining an education system worthy the name in which education is understood as a public good and not merely a private "investment". It is now essential to maintain the pressure as is being done by these students at Manchester University.
Given all the understandable gloom here in the UK following the publication of the Browne report and the following week's Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) which confirmed everyone's fears it is with some relief that it is possible to note that some people at least do think philosophy makes a valuable contribution to the general culture. So, for example, Malmesbury, birthplace of Thomas Hobbes, has declared itself a "philosophy town", even promoting this by means of a special website. Similarly, Liverpool has recently been hosting a "philosophy in the city" festival featuring talks and discussions and is helping to connect the philosophy department in Liverpool with the general town: details here.
For non-UK readers unsure of the response to the Browne report or its implications for UK higher education see this letter signed by a host of professors, including my colleague, Joanna Hodge.
The urgent need to resist the implementation of the Browne report and the way it will impact even on the most favoured UK universities has been eloquently set out by Martin McQuillan in his blog. The analysis he gives is substantially in line with the one presented on this blog and the link to it is here.
On 10th November in London the University and College Union are holding a joint demonstration with the National Union of Students to put pressure on the coalition government concerning the cuts in higher education: details here. Given the publication of the Browne report last week and the up-coming Comprehensive Spending Review this coming week it is essential that there is as large a turnout as possible for this march. Only by means of a show of strength such as a big march can we signal that we do not accept the positions of Browne and that we wish to defend higher education. The threats to higher education set out in Browne are real enough but when the figures currently being indicated as forthcoming from the spending review are added we are looking at the worse possible outcome. Higher education is threatened in a manner not seen even during the years of Thatcher: please come along and persuade others to do so also.
The report on student finance and the organisation of the university sector that was established by the last Labour government here in the UK has reported today. At the general election earlier this year here both the Labour and Conservative parties abdicated formulation of policy in this area stating in their manifestoes they were awaiting the publication of this report. Only the Liberal Democrats appeared to suggest a specific policy apparently favouring free higher education and the abolition of tuition fees. Since this time positions have "developed" with the Liberal Democrats initially moving to a graduate tax and now likely to move significantly in the direction of the report's conclusions. Regardless, for now, of the specific moves of the political parties, I have undertaken here to present a critical appraisal of the report in question, produced by a committee of people who include the ex-head of BP, a former chief advisor to Tony Blair, an economics consultant, the former chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), a scientist who specialises in structural materials, an expert on charities and a bank chief executive. The composition of the panel does not inspire confidence that we are faced with people who have the welfare of the higher education system foremost amongst their priorities and, unfortunately, on reading the report, this is confirmed. The report is, as I will seek to show, a fundamentally dishonest piece of work that reeks of intellectual fraud and moral bankruptcy.
The report is entitled Securing A Sustainable Future for Higher Education and its' sub-title makes clear that the mandate of the group who compiled it was drawn up to tie together questions of student finance with the general funding of higher education. Six principles are listed at the opening of the report: 1) making available greater investment for higher education; 2) increasing student choice; 3) safeguarding the right of everyone to a place in higher education; 4) ensuring no one should pay for higher education whilst actually studying but only on entry into paid employment; 5) that payments should be set at a rate that is affordable; 6) that part-time students should be treated the same way as full-time students.
Noticeably the principles listed simply take it as axiomatic that it should be the prime responsibility of those studying to pay for the major cost of higher education. As will be seen later, there are some cases where this is off-set but it is a general claim that is only briefly justified in the report itself. The justification basically consists in the claim that whilst there are benefits not just to those studying but also to the wider society in people participating in higher education as students that, nonetheless, the benefit to the individuals concerned is much greater than to the public as a whole. This claim is, as would always be the case with such a response to the very varied nature of student and graduate experience, one justified on average. It takes no account of the experience of those who do not move into higher paid jobs on exiting higher education and nor does it indicate how it can be quantified what the benefit for the public as a whole is or how it possibly could be quantified. This is the first problem with the report's response to data: it is cavalier and tailored to suit a pre-given case.
The second argument in favour of fees is that access to higher education is not universal or compulsory and in this respect is different to school education the cost of which is broadly taken from general taxation. It is true that school education is universal and compulsory but it is news to claim that this is the reason for its being funded from general taxation since it is generally claimed it is because of the evident public need for a set level of numeracy, literacy et al to be attained that we require to finance this out of general taxation. A similar case can be made that there is a general need for people with the level of education, skills and competence that comes from higher education. The fact that not all can enter it, due to requiring to meet a standard to be able to participate in higher education does not off-set this general public good requirement and nor does the fact that some choose not to avail themselves of higher education when they could. These are the only two arguments given as to why there cannot be free higher education though the implied third is the cost this would involve. The costs of not doing so have to be off-set against this and the two compared which is not done.
So the argument for the cost of higher education depending largely on increased student contributions goes largely by the board and sets the framework for the whole report. The general argument that develops is set within the terms of a "voucher system" where students are related to as financial units that the university attracts as its main source of income. This would lead to the cost of courses being met through the contributions students make. However, there is a big exception to this general market model made. This is in the areas of "priority subjects" identified as medicine, science and engineering and some (unspecified) modern languages. These areas are thought to either involve higher costs or to have some general public importance so that they can depend on greater support than other subjects.
Most reaction to the report has failed to grasp this point concerning the "priority subjects" and the basis of the argument concerning their funding. The report attacks the general principle of university financial support that has existed until now. This principle was that universities are supported primarily by large block grants from the state. The report argues that these grants should be removed and the "voucher system" of student support should replace them. However, the need for the discussion of "priority subjects" arises due to the fact that these subjects will retain specific state support for their existence and support of the sort the university as a whole used to have through the block grant system. Effectively this means that the selected subjects are related to as having a basis in the "national interest" that other subjects do not have and hence are treated as being worthy of subsidy. Other subjects (including everything in the arts and humanities) will sink or swim according to their ability to attract a sufficient student support base.
The element of social engineering added to the market model by the selection of "priority subjects" is added to by the way in which the number of students allowed per annum is treated. The report consistently attacks the way that currently governments can cap the number of students particular universities can take. It further implies that it would be preferable if there was no such cap. However, this is not in accord with what specifically gets recommended. Firstly, it has an interim view of the situation suggesting that what should happen now is that there should be a 10% increase in student places. In relation to this increase however it further suggests that this should not be an across the board increase in student places but should "follow trends in student demand" though it is unspecified how the current demand is to be understood. So, should the great demand in some institutions for philosophy degrees continue to be met even if, in some instances this is greater than demands for courses in bio-chemistry? Somehow I think not and this indicates a second source of intellectual dishonesty in the report.
This interim situation is problematic enough but to it is added a further problem when we have gone past it. After this has occurred there should be an introduction of a system where the government would annually relate to the student numbers on offer by raising or lowering the general tariff required to enter the university system in accord with the government's view of what could be afforded in relation to finance that year. For those don't believe this please see Sec1: 33 of the report. This would fundamentally distort the supposed introduction of a student market and show it to be rigged by the government.
The report further recommends lifting the bar on fees that students are charged. The result of this is that different universities could charge different amounts. However, on the one hand, this divergence would have to be publicly justified by the university including some kind of set of targets it would meet, an interference in their running. And, on the other hand, the greater the level of fee set, the smaller the proportion of the total fee would belong directly to the university itself. These two points added together detract visibly from any apparent "benefit" of the higher fees.
A number of different bodies are also recommended to be merged with the Higher Education Funding Councils, the Quality Assurance Agency, the Office for Fair Access et al all merged into a new Higher Education Council. The effect of such mergers would be greater centralisation of government response to some crucial aspects of oversight of the higher education system. This is indicated directly in the report which refers to a "more targeted" approach to regulation, effectively meaning lighter regulation than exists now for the most prestigious universities, greater concentration of research income on such universities and more varied ways of assessing their commitment to increasing access. All in all, a real loser of a proposal and another way of rigging the market system.
The specific proposals for student finance set out in the report are for an increase in fees with such fees related to ability to pay. The general proposals around these will doubtless be the main political battlefield for the future between the UK political parties and there are certainly central issues there, principally for the Liberal Democrats given that they were the only party committed to free education. However, academics generally should realise that the result of these proposals is a fundamental change in the running and financing of universities and that this change is one fronted dishonestly as based on market principles. It is, in fact, a programme for a rigged and distorted market that will produce (as is frankly acknowledged in the report) the consequence of the destruction and closure of many universities for the alleged benefit of a privileged few who will be largely set free from regulation and given all the "benefits" of this rigged market.
Purporting to present a good deal for all this report in fact is the herald of a new kind of government run and rigged "competition" that will certainly hurt universities in general and humanities subjects (outside a privileged circle of institutions) in particular.
