Universities and the current crisis

Not often that I commit thoughts of a vaguely political nature to the unsuspecting world at large but today is one of those occasions.

The opportunity for me to go to university arose almost unexpectedly when I was in my late forties thanks to a unique combination of circumstances, an opportunity for which I was very grateful. Albeit I was somewhat of a late starter as my school headmaster tried to persuade me not leave at the end of the lower sixth form. That as they say is history.

To come up up to date there is now a furore in full flow as to how higher education should be funded, should it be the taxpayer or the student are the only two realistic sources. Currently the talk is that future students might be faced with a university debt of anything up to sixty thousand pounds, not necessarily even on graduating because a number will drop out before the end of their studies.

How on earth did this crazy situation arise? Debate currently centres around the belief that there may be an excess of university aspirants causing the problem allied with a cut in state funding. SO far so good perhaps but the beginning of this fiasco lies a little further back in time. Tony Blair in his vision of equality for all decreed that at least fifty per cent of all school leavers should benefit from a university education, in itself a seemingly wonderful ideal. It does not, however, take much cerebral power to question this proposed golden future as to the viability of the 'one size fits all' approach. Prior to this pronouncement by the way only five percent of people in Britain were graduates, shortly to be superceded by half of the population.

The first and most obvious matter is the logistics of this utopia, how will it be funded, from where will the additional accommodation and staff magically appear. Given that this particular obstacle is successfully overcome then the next problem is where are all the jobs requiring a degree to be found or created, certainly not within the present and near future framework of the national economy.

A further and almost insurmountable problem is that because of a flood of graduates into the employment market potential employers will obviously be faced with better qualified candidates for all vacancies. No longer will applicants with several A Levels be considered for jobs as there are better qualified alternatives available. The domino effect is obvious for all to see. For example whereas once upon a time little if any qualification was required to stack tins in a supermarket there is a possibilty that many better educated folk will be doing that same job because the "better" jobs are not there for the asking. Competition for vacancies will increase and many will be disappointed eventually pondering whether the time and expense of gaining a degree was really worth the time, trouble, expense and effort.

SO why his specific current problem? Political expediency, short-termism and possibly self interest. What a way to run a country.