A new briefing paper
from the Institute of Economic
Affairs, authored by IEA
Head of Education Dr Stephen Davies, argues that Covid-19 has
exposed the "fundamentally unsound" nature of Higher Education
(HE) policy and of the entire array of HE institutions.
The pandemic has accelerated a
number of pre-existing trends, revealing those sectors already in
trouble. Universities are taking a big hit: overseas students
have been unable to travel and study; income from other sources
over the vacations has vanished; and many institutions were in a
weak financial position before this crisis.
These difficulties have
crystallised a feeling on the part of many people that there is
something “fundamentally wrong and misguided” with the HE policy
of successive British governments, with the kind of product and
service that universities offer, and the way the whole system is
run and financed.
UK policy has been heading in the
wrong direction since the mid 1980s. While the government is
using the current interruption for a rethink, it appears that the
political class has not yet fully grasped the extent of the
problem or opportunity that the pandemic represents. Instead,
they remain fixated on the idea that graduates are the driver of
economic growth. Their concern is simply that we have the wrong
kind of graduate.
However, while graduates
historically enjoy an income premium, there is a lot of evidence
to counter the belief that having a degree makes a graduate more
productive than a non-graduate. The good being supplied by HE
institutions is not more productive workers but the signal a
degree will send to prospective employers.
The sort of competition that we
see in other markets – of price competition, product variation
and price differentiation – has therefore been significantly
impaired. None of these helps when the good being supplied to the
actual primary customers (employers) and secondary customers
(students) is the nearly homogeneous one of a signal.
It has led to overextension,
increasing financial fragility and a system which "fails to meet
labour market needs". The present issues cannot therefore be
resolved by a continuation or expansion of previous policies. We
should resist pressure to bailout distressed and overextended
institutions so that they can continue as
before.
“To a Radical
Degree” argues that the current crisis offers the
opportunity to completely rethink HE and the good it provides,
making a number of
recommendations:
– Instead of having one kind of
institution, modelled ultimately on the ancient universities but
with most being cut-price versions, we could have several;
– There is a need to distinguish,
separate and expand the genuinely human capital enhancing
subjects and courses such as medicine, engineering and other STEM
subjects, and vocational and trade education and training;
– We should look to move away from
funding institutions out of current government spending and, by
doing this, to give them greater independence and
responsibility;
– The artificially inflated cost
of higher education should be reduced. In particular we could
look to move away from the distinctively English practice of the
residential university;
– We could also consider reviving
a range of different forms of attendance (which would go along
with the wider range of funding methods for students);
– We should stop using HE as a
certification device, and develop ways of measuring the kinds of
things that a degree signals (qualities of aptitude or character
and foundational ability) that do not require a three-year degree
course. HE should be thought of as a good that can be valuable at
any stage in life, and not for a (often spurious) supposed
financial benefit.
Dr Stephen Davies, Head of
Education at the Institute of Economic Affairs and author
of “To a
Radical Degree: Reshaping the UK’s Higher Education for the
post-pandemic world,” said:
“Covid-19 has caused a short term
funding crisis in UK universities. This has produced the
inevitable calls for a bailout but these should be resisted,
because it has also highlighted the structural problems of the
way Higher Education has developed in response to government
policies since the mid-1980s. This has damaged the true mission
of HE and has not benefitted graduates, employers, or the wider
economy.
“We should not look to either put
Humpty-Dumpty back together or to slim him down and have a
smaller sector but one still run on the same lines. Instead we
should seize the opportunity for a radical rethink of the nature
and purpose of HE and look to move to a system that is far more
varied and pluralistic.”
ENDS
Notes to
editors
“To a Radical Degree: Reshaping
the UK’s Higher Education for the post-pandemic world” is under
embargo until 00.01 on Thursday 13th August 2020. An embargoed
draft of the report can be found here: https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/To-a-Radical-Degree-v1.pdf
