HE

This article sets out how the government’s higher education white paper– and the legislation that will follow – will redraw three fundamental relationships that have defined higher education in the UK for 100 years: with the state, with students and with research. The aim of the white paper is to address these relationships and to create a more accessible, accountable and relevant higher education system but the author warns the white paper may also bring real dangers of unintended consequences.

Firstly, the notion that universities could fail. Universities have long enjoyed benign government sponsorship through predictable and steadily-rising grant funding. They have had assured student numbers and protection from competition, within a regulatory regime that they have largely designed and operated for themselves. However, the shift to funding through student tuition fees and the lifting of student quota controls has begun to expose universities to something approaching open market competition. The white paper extends this process, encouraging the entry of new and alternative higher education providers, and accepting that this could be at the expense of established institutions. The white paper makes clear that there will be no bail-outs for failing institutions, whose exit would be welcomed as a way of freeing up room in the market for more entrepreneurial and innovative new entrants.  This stance is based on faith that private providers, and the investors behind them, will rush to fill any void left by failed traditional institutions.

Secondly, quality of teaching. The white paper seeks to empower students as paying consumers of higher education services and pressure universities to enhance the quality and value of those services. The principal vehicle for this will be the much-anticipated Teaching Excellence Framework (Tef). But the great strength of the higher education system has always been the diversity of opportunities that it provides. The very nature of higher education varies hugely between disciplines, from intensive lab-based science projects to one-on-one tutoring for aspiring artists and musicians. This diversity cannot be captured by standardised metrics, and we must hope that the new Office for Students will be enabled to supplement the Tef with more nuanced judgements of quality.

Thirdly, universities may ditch research to focus on teaching. Research funding has become concentrated among a small number of Russell Group universities and policy has increasingly focused on major national centres like the Crick Institute and the Joint European Torus. The prospect of teaching-only universities, still regarded by many academics as an oxymoron, will become a real prospect as will the emergence of research-only institutions along the lines of the German Fraunhofer Institutes.

These changes, if they happen – and the white paper makes them quite likely – will differentiate the UK higher education system from every other system in the world. But the implications, for students and universities, remain to be seen.

Prior to the publication of the white paper Jessica prepared rural words looking at the relationships between Local Authorities and universities in benefitting rural areas (available here).