The Great University Con

by David Craig

  A gradual slide down the international league tables by UK universities has the potential to become a recurring bad news story. Closures, mergers and high–profile student lawsuits could have a similar effect, casting the whole of the UK Higher Education system in a negative light over the next decade or two. The public (specifically the tax–paying public) might understand and even accept declining league–table performance in a more competitive international environment. However, they may struggle to accept a decline if they see this decline accompanied by ever–increasing university fees and ever–increasing student debt.

  Any difficulties UK universities face in recruiting students and staff will translate into financial problems. Universities which struggle to recruit students, especially international students, will face dwindling fee income. This will reduce their ability to pay academics, especially the “star” academic names who act as a draw to domestic and international students. Universities which cannot attract the best academics will also be less able to attract research funding. Academics with a strong publications record improve a university’s chances of winning both domestic and international research funding.

  Each of these issues – declining student numbers, university funding problems, dropping down league tables and difficulties in recruiting academic talent will represent a major challenge for individual UK universities over the next decade. The collective challenge they may all face is the possible interaction of these issues with the economic and social problems occasioned by increasing graduate debt, an escalating concern over bad graduate debt, a loss of public confidence in the value of degrees and a growing unease at the effect of the modern university environment on the attitudes and values of our young people.

  Once universities slip into a self–reinforcing negative spiral, it will be difficult to halt their decline. The last decade has seen long–running scandals in the political and banking spheres which have massively eroded public trust in their respective institutions. Given the possible interaction of the problems outlined above, it is not hard to imagine the UK’s universities engulfed in a similar crisis at some point in the next decade. In the worst case scenario for universities, they might find that they had far fewer friends and far more public scrutiny than they might currently imagine possible.

  Interestingly, 2017 has provided a small foretaste of this with well–publicised attacks on aspects of the Higher Education system by senior political figures such as Andrew Adonis (one of the architects of tuition fees) and Nick Timothy (Theresa May’s former chief of staff). Both men raised questions about the ballooning pay of vice chancellors and the sustainability of the student loans system. Nick Timothy’s views were particularly trenchant:

  “Certain degree subjects offer no return on investment, while studies show there are entire universities where average graduate earnings 10 years after study are less than those of non–graduates. We have created an unsustainable and ultimately pointless Ponzi scheme, and young people know it. With average debts of £50,000, graduates in England are the most indebted in the developed world. Even if they do not pay off the full amount, graduates face dramatic increases in marginal tax rates as their earnings increase.” 451

  Universities also had to field criticism in 2017 from a more unexpected quarter: the Advertising Standards Authority. Requiring six universities to withdraw marketing material that contained misleading or inaccurate claims about their performance in academic league tables and student satisfaction surveys, Guy Parker, the Authority’s Chief Executive, announced to universities that:

  “If you’re making claims about your national or global ranking, student satisfaction or graduate prospects, make sure you practice what you teach: play by the advertising rules, in particular by backing up your claims with good evidence. Going to university involves a big financial commitment and misleading would–be students is not only unfair, it can also lead them to make choices that aren’t right for them.” 452

  Universities are not used to public debate framed in these terms and their leaders and senior management are particularly ill–prepared for this type of enquiry. For many of them, it is highly doubtful that they have even considered fundamental questions about their institutions and the system they inhabit. If a degree offers less learning in return for massive debt and limited graduate–level job opportunities, if one in every two people has a degree, if debt repayment wipes out the graduate premium for all but the best–paid graduates, if universities are increasingly to become “safe spaces” protected from free speech, controversy or independent thought, then what exactly is the point of a degree? If this is the future, then what is the point of being a graduate or indeed of many of our universities? Even more pertinently, what has been the point of expansion? These are all questions that university leaders and politicians might find themselves being asked with increasing frequency over the next decade.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: SORTING OUT THE MESS

  After decades of the Great Uni Expansion, it’s clear that whatever was promised – a highly–educated workforce, increased social mobility, a more productive economy – none of these have been delivered. Moreover, if our universities are in denial about their own condition, then they cannot be trusted to find and implement solutions to the problems their Great Expansion has created. So, the only people who can sort out the mess must be those outside the university system – government, students, parents and taxpayers – in other words the funders, the users and the customers of universities.

  The negative results of the mismanagement of the Great Expansion can be summarised:

  1. Graduates

  A general and cynical oversupply of graduates.

  A shortage of STEM graduates.

  An astonishing oversupply of graduates in soft subjects.

  A large oversupply of graduates in vocational subjects.

  2. Funding

  Most graduates will not repay their loans.

  Taxpayers face an enormous liability for unpaid loans.

  Student numbers are likely to peak and then decline.

  If student numbers decline, some UK universities will face a substantial funding gap threatening many with bankruptcy.

  3. Falling standards

  Many students unable to cope with the academic demands of Higher Education.

  A significant decline in the teaching resource per student.

  A reduction in the average quality of domestic and international students.

  Devaluation of degrees.

  A degree–factory system of Higher Education which does not provide graduates with the skills wanted by employers.

  Many of these problems are the result of successive governments applying a one–size–fits–all model to the UK Higher Education system and universities wilfully abusing politicians’ short–sightedness and incompetence to boost their own growth, finances, power and status.

  Back to the future?

  The most obvious solution to the appalling mismanagement, massive financial waste and cynical betrayal of students during the Great Expansion might be to go back to where it all went wrong – the obsession of our elites and academic bosses with the one–size–fits–all, ‘Uni–or–bust’ mentality. The damage that this mentality has caused is now obvious to any impartial observer. The respected US academic Martin Trow, who spent his life researching Higher Education, described the ham–fisted efforts of successive UK governments as producing: “…a pattern of policy that resembled a somewhat unskilled automobile driver who parks by ear.”453

  The results of this “parking by ear” are stark. Thirty years ago, our Higher Education was far from perfect, but it did offer a genuine diversity of choice to students, including Oxbridge, a strong tier of research universities, an array of polytechnics and specialist technical colleges and the Open University. Each of these offered different approaches to Higher Education, high quality in
–depth teaching at Oxbridge and the research universities, vocational training at the polytechnics and technical colleges and a flexible route back into academia for mature students through the Open University. This diversity more closely mirrored the actual needs of the country, rather than the ideological mirages (castles in the air?) that have driven the Great Expansion.

  Whilst Oxbridge has retained its identity, most other institutions have converged towards the same homogenous offering for undergraduates. This has generally meant a greater percentage of classroom–based degrees, diluted content and three–year degrees offered full–time to school leavers. This factory model has made it much easier for universities to design and manage their courses, at the expense of quality, relevance, usefulness and differentiation.

  In response to a globalised world in which change and increasing complexity are perhaps the only constants, the Great Expansion has delivered fewer and fewer choices about when, where, what and how to study. Expansion has seen many of our universities becoming like bog–standard comprehensives that now charge boarding–school fees.

  Nothing has underlined this failure as effectively as the savage decline of the Open University. A highly innovative success story for UK Higher Education, in alternate reality the Open University could have been the institution to manage and deliver any expansion (or contraction) of Higher Education that our economy and society required.

  So how do we sort out this mess? Describing any solution in detail would be folly. But we should look instead for principles that would support both a greater flexibility in how students study and a broader range of the types of Higher Education offered to them. This is not rocket science. But to make our Higher Education system fit for purpose again, will require some hard truths and some difficult choices. Better that though, than what is currently on offer to future generations, unpayable debt for often worthless degrees.

  We could start by re–branding at least 20 to 30 institutions back to being polytechnics restricted to offering only one– and two–year practical courses that are aimed at equipping graduates with skills that professions genuinely require. Nursing, in particular, is one subject that could and should be moved away from the fixation with a three–year university degree. Journalism is another. As one journalist remarked “It now takes three years at a university to learn what we learnt on a 40–week diploma course at the poly”. In addition, these polytechnics and technical colleges could stop wasting students’ time and students’ and taxpayers’ money on useless degrees for which there is demonstrably no jobs market. Instead they could help turn out some of the professions that the British economy actually needs and will always need – literate and numerate bricklayers, plumbers, carpenters, roofers and skilled employees for the healthcare and retail sectors.

  Of course, this can never happen. Politicians can never admit that they got it wrong – especially after politicians from all parties have all been religiously pursuing the same misguided policies for so many years. As for the vice chancellors and academic staff at any soon–to–be polys and technical colleges, they would bitterly resist any such re–branding of their failing but exploitative institutions, any reduction in their perceived status and any threats to their university–level salaries.

  That leaves our universities with a choice. Either universities could work together to manage the inevitable shrinkage of our bloated Higher Education sector or universities will be forced to downsize due to a series of financial crises caused by falling student numbers as would–be students wise up to the Great University Con and universities’ income falls. Given the greed, self–interest and managerial incompetence of many university bosses, one can imagine that they’ll either go crawling to politicians for more support and more taxpayer money or, if that fails, choose the latter option in the hope that they and their institution will survive the coming bloodbath while their competitors go under.

  However, were universities to constructively approach and actively manage the inevitable bursting of their expansion bubble, here are some actions they could consider.

  Time to go on a diet?

  The most obvious first step in fixing our universities is to gradually reduce the number of students by say 5% a year for at least the next five years. This would have several benefits such as improving the average quality of the student population and increasing the number of teacher contact hours with students, both of which could be used to improve the quality of teaching and the value of degrees being awarded.

  There are several ways this could be achieved:

  Setting a minimum grade tariff to access loans.

  Not funding courses with low graduate premiums.

  Restricting the funding for vocational courses to reduce oversupply.

  It is currently possible for a student to enter university with one grade E at A–level. This student is likely to go to a new university, to struggle academically and to receive a poor degree or drop out. If they graduate, they are more likely to be unemployed or have a non–graduate job. Consequently, they are less likely to repay their loans. But should any student, who cannot better one grade E at A–level, automatically be entitled to £50,000 or more of loans? This current “open door” policy has been a contributory factor to falling standards. Ultimately, university is not for everybody and, if an applicant cannot demonstrate a minimum level of attainment and ability, why should there be an automatic expectation of funding? Especially if much of that funding will eventually have to be picked up by the taxpayer.

  Or, rather than excluding school leavers with low grades from Higher Education altogether, one solution might be to restrict students with grades below a set tariff to part–time study, providing funding for one 30–credit module initially at the Open University. Passing each module would provide access to further funding on an incremental but increasing basis. This would still allow everybody who wants to access Higher Education to do so, whilst acting as a screening mechanism for those students with the least chance of achieving a graduate premium and thus minimising bad debt for students and taxpayers alike.

  Deciding where to draw the line for undergraduate funding is a difficult question. It might need to vary according to the specific grades produced each year. The percentage of grades awarded differs considerably between subjects. It is harder, for example, for a student to achieve top grades in STEM subjects than Arts subjects at A–level. Persisting with no line, however, will benefit nobody apart from those universities whose main contribution to the national economy appears to be transforming the coffee–shop barista, call–centre operative and gym assistant into a graduate career.

  A further approach would be to limit the loans available for vocational degrees such as psychology, social work and law. In some of these areas, the government is the majority employer of graduates. If the departments involved estimated the number of new recruits required in psychology or social work, then the Student Loans Company could provide loans for this number of students only.

  Professional bodies, such as the Law Society, could provide similar estimates. So, if the Law Society identified 5,500 training contracts available in 2011,454 then the government should have funded this number plus say 25% (allowing for wastage and expansion) in 2012. This would have meant 6,875 graduates, rather than the 24,000 graduates funded in 2010/2011. A similar approach already works successfully with the training of doctors. Why not apply it to all of the vocational degrees where there is oversupply?

  Moreover, if the same logic was applied to shortage areas, such as STEM subjects, the government could offer incentives, such as reduced or no fees, rather than caps, for universities to recruit and students to apply. This approach has been used for decades to ensure an adequate supply of teachers. Why not apply it more generally to graduates in key subjects as a whole?

  Student headcount could also be reduced by withdrawing or restricting funding for courses and universities with high drop–out
rates and low levels of graduate–level employment and salaries. The Student Loans Company and HMRC already possess data which show the universities and courses with high loan non–repayment rates. Allowances could be made for universities with large numbers of part–time or mature students, where higher than average drop–out rates are to be expected. Where universities or courses are shown to have much higher loan non–repayment rates than comparable universities or courses, a few pertinent questions could be asked. These questions might include whether a university or course provides additional value which validates the taxpayer footing the bill for higher non–repayments? Does the university provide a flexible and successful route back into Higher Education for mature students? Does a university particularly benefit students from disadvantaged backgrounds? Or does the university serve a more remote region in the UK, which would otherwise not have access to Higher Education?

  If the answer to these questions is a clear and resounding “NO” and the non–repayment level has been consistently far above expectations, then taxpayer funding should be withdrawn. This would prevent many students from taking out loans if they have little or no chance of repaying them and if their courses do not also provide some obvious additional social, economic or cultural value.

  Alternatively, one could always cut to the chase and cut all funding to those universities with non–repayment in the bottom 25% of universities (allowing current cohorts to graduate). This would result in a quarter of universities closing or reverting back to being polytechnics or technical colleges. But the simple fact is that these are the universities which provide graduate debt without graduate jobs. They are the universities offering degrees in sports science, forensic studies, gender studies and drama. They are the universities which are cynically recruiting tens of thousands of students in the full knowledge that these students will get debts without the corresponding career opportunities to ever repay those debts.