On the face of it, our higher education system may appear like a resounding success. For instance, UCAS data from 2024 revealed that 279,550 UK 18-year-olds entered higher education last year, a larger number than ever before. Meanwhile, graduates funnelled out of the system seem to be improving every year; the proportion of ‘good honours’ (Firsts and 2.1s) awarded at UK universities rose from below 50% in 2000 to around 80% since 2019. The proportion of Firsts climbed to over 30% in 2020 and has remained there since. 

This would seem a remarkable achievement that we as students should be proud of.  Not least given the ever-more frequent warnings of financial pressures on universities, many years of government funding cuts, and the threat of redundancies and changes to staffing.

"Student numbers and degree outcomes obscure a darker truth"

However, student numbers and degree outcomes obscure a darker truth. Graduate employment rates have been stagnant at best for well over a decade, and ever more students are struggling with mental health and personal finances. These seemingly amazing academic outcomes are largely a mirage caused by massive grade inflation. If that is not enough to convince you, consider that outstanding student debt in England is nearly £250 billion (close to 10% of the entire UK GDP!), placing further financial strain on graduates. Consider, for example, that an estimated 73% of the 2022 intake will never pay back their student loans in full: future taxpayers will be the ones to pick up the tab. In short, UK higher education is in a sorry state, with warning signs everywhere and few willing to address them.

To fix it, we need to understand how we got here. Ever since the Thatcher government commissioned the Jarratt Report in 1985, which claimed that “universities are first and foremost corporate enterprises," higher education has been run along increasingly neoliberal, business-like lines. A former adviser to Thatcher recalled that “she was determined to introduce a much higher level of accountability for public funding and a greater accountability for students as customers.” The pervasive idea of neoliberalism – that the market, where everyone follows their own self-interest, is invariably the only way to get an efficient outcome – ran strong though Thatcher’s government, not least her higher education policy. Every government since has largely accepted this method of managing higher education, seeking to minimise costs whilst maximising intake. 

"Ironically, it is efficiency ... that has been sacrificed by decades of neoliberal policy"

Ironically, it is efficiency, in the form of manageable costs for providers and strong outcomes for students, that has been sacrificed by decades of neoliberal policy. The massive expansion in young people attending university has not been matched by sufficient funding for high-quality teaching, nor sufficient regulation to ensure universities are providing it. As a result of dwindling career prospects, many students feel that university is not working as it should for them, let alone providing value for money.

So, how do we fix it?

Clearly, the status quo of close to 40% of school leavers going to university, and it failing to provide them with much career enhancement or intellectual enjoyment, is unacceptable. However, it is already too late for universities and the government to make the necessary changes to provide affordable, high-quality, and intellectually stimulating learning for the current numbers of students. The costs would simply be too prohibitive given the precarious state of government finances.

There is only one real option left, which is the hardest truth of all to confront: university intakes must be substantially reduced, and soon. It is a difficult thing to say, but I see little evidence that the funnelling of so many young people into full-time live-in university study is providing them, or those who cover the costs, with the returns they desire.

Of course, this cannot all happen in isolation. To provide the opportunities that young people deserve, we must also reverse the decline in other forms of higher education. Apprenticeships especially, but also part-time degrees, which have suffered a shocking decline in intake over recent years, and remote learning formats like the Open University.

None of this will be easy, immediate, or likely given political constraints. However, to me it is the only viable way to counter the damage that decades of misguided neoliberal policy, combined with the obsession over increasing university intakes at all costs, has done to UK higher education, and I believe that it is desperately necessary. 

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