Privatising the universities

[kaberett]

So. This news story - about off-quota university places, i.e. places for people "who meet the required standards" but are able to afford to pay their fees upfront in full without loans - has been doing the rounds.

And I've just had a nasty little thought about it.

A few weeks ago I was working on the college telephone campaign (mea culpa, I know). The college Bursar said many horrible and irrelevant things during our training, and one horrible (and horribly) relevant one: he believes that Cambridge will end up going private, and other universities will follow suit, finishing up with a US-style system of higher education.

(When I say "he believes", what I mean is: I understand that he sits on several of the university-wide steering committees on financial issues, strongly supports privatisation, and is unsettlingly likely to be listened to, given the fantastic job he's been doing with the college endowment.)

Seems to me that the fury over "allowing rich students to buy places" is potentially a carefully-orchestrated smokescreen: it's a nice safe way to ease universities and their student body into accepting the idea of purchasing places - conveniently over roughly the same timescale that my Bursar thinks will be needed to convince the die-hard left-wing academics that this is the Way of the Future.

What am I missing?

Comments

[kaberett]

One of my other concerns being that off-quota students will still need lab space, accommodation, etc.

AND ALSO - this government, having officially disavowed (IIRC) the "50% of young people in higher education" target of the previous government - seems to be using awfully similar rhetoric, recently, just carefully avoiding putting numbers on it. Hmmm.

[hoiho]

I don't think you're missing anything. It's clearly the long-term game-plan of some in the upper echelons of Oxbridge. And some of the Russell Group, too, although some of them may have more legal problem establishing that they're not actually publicly owned. Oxbridge (and the Scottish ancients) are clearly effectively self-owned, from their foundations. But the civic and government founded institutions may not be as free.

[kaberett]

Fuck. :-(

Government-founded institutions: I am concerned that this is precisely that, the government trying to persuade them to go private.

I do at least know that there is also strong feeling at high levels within my college (and as a result within the university, because lol my college is taking over) that education should be free, but I am not sure how well that will be able to counter the opposing views. :-(

[emperor]

I'd be suprised if the Regent House wanted anything to do with privatisation at the moment, and I'll be shocked and surprised if that changes any time soon.

[kaberett]

My college bursar is thinking on a timescale of a decade.

[emperor]

Heck, there's a tiny chance I'll be a Regent by then ;-)

[jack]

Yeah. I don't like it, but it seems plausible: obviously the government would like it if the university were superficially just as good, but not paid for by the government, and if they stop paying the university won't have much of a choice. Private is probably still better than shutting down. Regardless of who at the university likes the idea of being private, and who (like me) shudders.