A small revolution in higher education took place this week when David Willetts, the universities minister, permitted BPP, a business and law college based in Shepherd’s Bush, to use the title ‘university college’. By doing so he created the first private university since Buckingham University opened its doors in 1976. The move was not to everyone’s taste: the University and College Union (UCU) claimed that the new institution represented a ‘huge threat to academic freedom and standards’, adding that in a survey of 504 professors, 96 per cent apparently endorse this view.
Any psephologists among them might question the validity of this exercise on the grounds that respondents to opinion polls have a tendency not to answer the question put to them but to use it as a proxy for the question they really want to answer. Is it really the maintenance of freedom and standards that motivates the professors, or is it a fear that they will lose their cosy public sector pay and pension packages?
We don’t recall the UCU complaining about standards when colleges of further education were transformed overnight into universities, awarding degrees for subjects such as surfing studies and catering management. Many of these universities have shamelessly filled their lecture halls by curtailing rigorous scientific degrees in favour of trendy subjects. The 285 courses now on offer in forensic science, for example, are designed to appeal to viewers of TV detective series but are scorned by the forensic science profession itself. In spite of this populist approach, many new universities have high drop-out rates, with a quarter of students failing to complete their degrees at some institutions.
It is, moreover, a bizarre argument that only a state monopoly can be trusted to ensure academic freedom — those who have worked in former Soviet countries would disagree. There is, of course, tension between freedom and high standards: if you allow people to do what they like, not everyone will succeed. But David Willetts is right to recognise that the university sector is crying out for more competition.
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