Many readers of Prospect will have views about the future of Britain’s universities based on memories of their days at college, perhaps half a generation ago. Those views, and public opinion in general, matter: higher education (HE) is a big political issue. We are now experiencing a lull after the storm of the debates about tuition fees two years ago. But during this parliament the arguments will hot up again—about fees, about the access of people from less advantaged backgrounds to HE, about HE’s scale and purpose, and about the role of the state in relation to universities.
Those whose views are determined by their own memories are likely to form a misleading picture of the university scene. In 1990, less than 20 per cent of young people were in HE. By 2005, this had risen to over 30 per cent. The number of students with family backgrounds in the lower social classes has increased substantially, although their proportion of the total has fallen, along with the decline in their proportion in the general student-age group in the population. An important factor here has been the rising participation of mature (over 25) and part-time students. The student body in British universities is now much more diverse in background, age and mode of study than it was only 15 years ago. It is also more diverse in ethnic and national background. There has been a sharp increase in the number of postgraduates, especially of students at master’s level: their numbers increased by over 40 per cent between 1995 and 2002. Many of the new postgraduates are from overseas, from China, Germany, and eastern Europe among other places. Indeed, there is a record number of overseas students at every level—and the professoriat has also become increasingly international, with the “brain gain” substantially exceeding the brain drain.
Since the extension of the university brand to the former polytechnics in 1992 and the growth of vocational and professional studies at most universities, there has been a marked rise in the proportion of students following broadly vocational courses, from media studies, business studies and leisure and tourism to nursing and medicine. Traditional humanities courses are still very popular, although the same cannot be said of some traditional science courses: there are now more than four times as many English undergraduates as there are physics undergraduates. The demand for university places has increased year after year, defying prophecies to the contrary when student loans for maintenance were introduced in 1990 and when the £1,000 annual tuition fee started in 1998. This increase in demand is likely to continue, despite the £3,000 annual tuition fee that comes in later this year.
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