\n<\/p>\n
E<\/span>ducation opens doors, and the expansion of higher education begun under New Labour means that millions of young people who would not previously have gone from school to university have now done so. From 336,000 places accepted in 1997, the total rose by 68% to 563,000 in 2022. In last year\u2019s student experience survey, just 11% of undergraduates said that they regretted their decision to take a degree.<\/p>\n In an interview with this newspaper at the weekend, Prof Shitij Kapur, the vice-chancellor of King\u2019s College London, stressed that one consequence of this increased access has been that degrees no longer confer a virtually automatic graduate job. His likening of a degree to a visa \u2013 or a \u201cchance\u201d rather than a guarantee \u2013 was striking, and he is right that the increased difficulties of graduates in finding suitable work must be taken seriously. Along with rising student debt and the less favourable terms now attached to loans, this tighter graduate job market explains why, having reached Tony Blair\u2019s target of 50% in 2017, the proportion of young people now going to university has since fallen.<\/p>\n Reduced security for graduates was not the only price paid for expansion. Universities themselves are under huge financial pressure, as public funding has contracted and other sources of income have been stretched thinner and thinner. Academic careers have become increasingly precarious as permanent jobs have disappeared.<\/p>\n If the sector looked forward to better treatment under a Labour government, its hopes have been dashed. No sooner had Bridget Phillipson announced plans to change the law so that tuition fees will in future rise with inflation, than another decision wiped out the modest gains from this one. From 2028, universities must pay a new flat tax or \u201clevy\u201d of \u00a3925 for every international student that they recruit. Coming on top of tighter visa restrictions, which have already made such recruitment harder, some universities will find it increasingly difficult to balance their books. As students and academics return to campuses this month, 24 institutions are regarded by their regulator, the Office for Students, as being at risk of collapse within 12 months. More could exit the market in the next few years.<\/p>\n Further strikes, cuts and closures are likely. But judging by the plans published so far, ministers are\u00a0ill-prepared for what is coming. The white paper\u00a0published in the autumn said that universities\u00a0should work more closely with further education providers. It also promised reform of the research excellence framework and a new power for the Office for Students to cap numbers. But while such problem-solving measures are fine in themselves, they do not add up to an overall strategy, or explain what the promised \u201cchange of approach\u201d is meant to achieve.<\/p>\n Despite all their difficulties, universities remain an enormous and irreplaceable national asset. As well as educating millions of people, they generate about \u00a324bn in export earnings, which is about 1% of GDP \u2013 more than aircraft manufacturing and legal services combined, as a recent study of public attitudes to higher education pointed out. It was right for ministers to make skills policy a priority. Reform of the options for school leavers and adult learners was long overdue. But ministers cannot continue to ignore the impossible situation that universities have been placed in by successive governments. They need a policy of their own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Education opens doors, and the expansion of higher education begun under New Labour means that millions of young people who would not previously have gone from school to university have now done so. From 336,000 places accepted in 1997, the total rose by 68% to 563,000 in 2022. In last year\u2019s student experience survey, just<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[21789,1516,1510,134,1436,489,1511],"class_list":{"0":"post-40559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-clearer","9":"tag-editorial","10":"tag-guardian","11":"tag-labour","12":"tag-plan","13":"tag-universities","14":"tag-view"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}