Since the Labour party were elected in early July to form the UK Government, I have been eagerly awaiting announcements of plans to try and fix the crisis facing British universities. Having spent the last five years researching a PhD thesis at the University of Essex which examined the relationship between political narratives of social mobility and policies of widening participation in relation to universities in England, it was no surprise when stories about the financial insecurity of institutions began to circulate in the media in the run-up to the pandemic. However, unlike the media reports, my research suggests that restrictions on international student visas and the real-terms reduction in the value of home student fees are not the cause of this crisis, although they certainly do not help the financial situations of universities (or the experiences of their students and staff). Rather, there are deeper politicised and ideological roots to this problem that have been manifesting for some time, which, if they go unchecked will only exacerbate the insecurity of the British higher education system.
At the time of writing, it has been nearly two months since Labour were elected and I am yet to hear any substantial discussion about higher education from government ministers. Meanwhile, communications highlighting the impact of this crisis on universities and their staff have revealed a shared sense of both trauma and community across institutions and disciplines. On the 22 July The Guardian reported that the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson ‘acknowledged’ the crisis facing the sector while stating that ‘English universities should not expect a government bailout’. Later that week, on the 26 July, Phillipson released a press statement announcing a ‘refreshed focus’ for the Office for Students and the release of an independent report which recommends that ‘the regulator closely monitors the financial sustainability of all higher education providers’. Also announced in this press statement was the new interim Chair of OfS, David Behan, who was reported by The Sunday Times on 18 August as claiming that the ‘golden age of universities is over’ while also stating that he did not rule out raising fees and lifting restrictions on international student visas. The contextual reliability of this reporting was scrutinised by WONKHE on the same day, along with the Times’ sightings of a briefing to vice-chancellors to draw up a “six-point plan” in preparation for avoiding a “disorderly market exit”’, and reports from iNews that plans for tuition fee increases are being drawn up.
Media reports aside, what is clear is the apparent distancing of the Department for Education from the crisis. By emboldening the OfS with a ‘refreshed focus’ to monitor the financial situation of universities, the government directs responsibility away from itself and towards this supposedly independent body. My thesis, which conducts a macro-, meso- and micro-level analysis of widening participation in England reveals that since its creation in 2018 the OfS has played an instrumental role in mediating government control over universities. It is surprising to find, then, that this relationship is being strengthened further by a government whose manifesto promise was to bring about change to Britain. Crucially, the OfS ensures that every ‘provider’ remains committed to widening participation by tying their ability to charge maximum fees with having an agreed Access and Participation Plan which gets signed off by the OfS and is largely informed by metrics controlled by it. Underpinning this widening participation process is an agenda which aims to instil into the minds of prospective students a belief in meritocracy by promoting ideas such as aspiration and opportunity. As the work of Jo Littler highlights, these tropes have transcended party political divides to enable an ideology of neoliberal meritocracy to flourish. My research shows how this ideology bolsters a political narrative of social mobility which instrumentalises education, framing it in terms of ‘individual success’, to drive widening participation by encouraging students to ‘invest’ in higher education.
In a speech to Universities UK on the 7 September 2023, Phillipson began by stating that ‘as Keir Starmer and I have set out, education is all about opportunity’. The speech goes on to propose ‘a new conception of opportunity’ discussed in intellectual, economic, social, and cultural terms, before qualifying that ‘education, and opportunity, cannot and must not be considered merely as goods for individuals’. At a surface level this rhetoric appears positive. Yet, to date, all we have seen from the new Education Secretary is a continuation of what was already happening. If the restrictions on international student recruitment are reversed and the tuition fees for home students increased, as is being hinted at in the media, then the current model of higher education in England will continue in much the same fashion, with the OfS keeping watch over the state of institutional finances.
But this ‘social mobility’ model of higher education is not sustainable. Creating a ‘new conception of opportunity’ does not change its underlying ideology of neoliberal meritocracy. Sammy Wright’s Exam Nation which has recently featured as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week explains how beliefs in meritocracy and attempts to measure it shape the school system in England. Having worked as a teacher for over twenty years and having sat on the government’s Social Mobility Commission between 2018 and 2021, Wright conducted hundreds of interviews with teachers, education experts and pupils to inform his book, which shows how English education divides schools and pupils into winners and losers. The book concludes with a discussion of Milton’s Paradise Lost, through which he explains:
all education is in search of this, not only transmitting the insights of the past but enabling the future to see clearly enough to discard that which is mistaken and to hold onto that which is true.
Wright then applies these principles to his experiences by suggesting:
We cannot claim fairness and choice where there is none. We cannot all win. The model we have lived with for the last forty years of constant, ceaseless expansion and cutthroat individualism cannot go on forever. At some point we have to remake the way we think about the world we live in. We have to tell a better story. Schools are only one part of this, but they are the part I know, and I know, they can be better.
Universities are also a part of this, and I know that they too can be better. During the same period that higher education participation rates have increased, with record numbers of ‘disadvantaged students’ entering universities through widening participation initiatives, social mobility in Britain has been in decline and poverty has increased. The failure of the social mobility narrative lies in its reluctance to admit that there are some people who do not need to be socially mobile. Dreams of ‘opportunity’ and requirements for ‘aspiration’ are marketed specifically towards those who are not privileged. This marketing encourages investment which sustains a system that creates winners and losers while continuing to benefit the already privileged. And, ironically, the same stories of meritocracy are used by those born into The British Elite to justify their own position. Recognising that social and economic inequalities exist should be the first step in moving towards the creation of genuine opportunities which can only be created if those in positions of privilege invest in those in need of them. The current system requires the unprivileged themselves to make the investment.
Despite the distorted nature of this set up, on 16 August 2024, WONKHE reported that one day after the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) results day, there were more UK domiciled 18 year olds holding a university place ‘than at any comparable point in history’. This recruitment success could suggest that a belief in meritocracy still holds strong and that the opportunity that higher education offers is still worthy of investment. But there are also other ways to interpret this scenario. University, for many, has become an extension of school. The OfS, since its creation, has strategized access by encouraging a partnership approach between schools, colleges, and universities. Many students have been taught, supported by teachers and parents through this partnership process, that higher education is the natural next step in their journey to a career and the adulthood that this symbolises. Not to apply to university at the age of 18 is to leave this comfort zone of education and to bring on the responsibilities of adulthood before their time. Simultaneously, career prospects in contemporary low-wage Britain are often ‘low paid and high risk, a series of short-term jobs with no security and little future’. Young people are often wise to the realities facing them in the labour market, so to borrow money that you are unlikely to ever repay in full as a strategy to postpone this life of labour for a few more years is understandable, especially when there is always that slim chance that you might be one of the ones to strike it lucky.
Although the recruitment success may be good news for the ‘sector’ of UK higher education, this success is not shared equally across all universities. Higher ranking universities are able to recruit higher numbers of students, leaving a shortfall for the lower ranking institutions. Every year this results in a ‘chaotic scramble to hoover up students through clearing’, which as the UCU General Secretary Jo Grady argues, ‘shows why universities need a new funding model’. The only factor which sometimes helps the lower ranking universities is that many students cannot afford to move away from home, so will have no choice but to enrol at their local university, which (according to the neoliberal logic) will be to their disadvantage.
If beliefs in meritocracy are broken where does this leave the ‘social mobility’ model? For Chris Husbands, former vice-chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University, there is ‘no realistic way through the issues facing English universities without thinking about the future shape and size of the sector’. Now that nearly two months have elapsed since the election and we are yet to hear any substantial debate about universities, perhaps the government is following Husbands’ advice that we ‘need to think hard about the higher education the country needs and is willing to support’. If given the opportunity to contribute to that discussion, I would agree with Husbands’ stance about the unsustainability of the sector, but I would go further in proposing that before thinking about ‘shape and size’ or what ‘the country needs and is willing support’, we need to first question the purposes of universities by considering which ideologies shape that purpose.
Like Sammy Wright, I believe that ‘at some point we must remake the way we think about the world we live in. We must tell a better story’. For me, that story is best told through the eyes of the people without whom a university has no purpose – the teachers and researchers, the education experts, and the students. Only through listening to and conversing with those who live the process of education will policy makers be able to understand the ways in which the system needs to change or stay the same. When the new government was elected on 4 July it was my hope that the ‘social mobility’ model of higher education would be replaced by a model of ‘social justice’ and that I would be given the opportunity to play a part in its creation. As time ticks on my hope is beginning to fade, despite the claims of an opportunity for change.