The University of Cambridge has criticised the government’s plans for higher education, claiming they will cause “considerable damage” to the sector and its “international standing”.

In a strongly critical response to the government’s Green Paper ‘Higher Education: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice’, the University claims that the consultation “fails to demonstrate an understanding of the purpose of our universities”.

In the Green Paper, the government lays out plans to “reshape the higher education landscape to have students at its heart”.

But the university claims: “They risk undermining the very priorities they are designed to advance”.

The report is co-authored by the Vice-Chancellor, Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, and was submitted on behalf of the university and its 31 constituent colleges.

It cites “fundamental concern” with three aspects of the proposals: the complete separation of funding and regulation of teaching from research; the “likely [...] counter-productive” mechanisms to implement them; and “the removal of one regulatory body independent of government” responsible for all university activity.

Among the government’s flagship proposals is the establishment of a Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), which seeks to help students “understand the quality of teaching offered at different institutions”, aiming to “raise teaching standards” in higher education as students make “more informed choices” about where to study.

The document also includes proposals to increase “access and success” in higher education participation from under-represented groups, and to create a single gateway for entry across the sector.

However, the university “strongly oppose[s] any imposition of admissions targets” as a breach of institutional autonomy and academic freedom.

Considering imposed admissions targets as a threat to “the fundamental principle of educational standards required for entry”, the report also warns that such targets “risk harming the outcomes upon which the national and global reputation of the sector relies and the prestige and benefit of achieving a degree for students”.

The government’s consultation lists providing “greater focus on graduate employability” as one of its “core aims”. It also aims to establish an Office for Students (OFS) to “promote the student interest and ensure value for money”. The university was highly critical of this focus.

“The ‘long-reach’ aim of universities is to help students grow into thoughtful and critical citizens, not just earners and consumers,” it says.

The University also expressed concern that the TEF regime would pave the way for a system of truly variable fees in higher education.

“We do not support the linkage between TEF and fees: it is bound to affect student decision-making adversely, and in particular it may deter students from low income families from applying to the best universities,” its response reads.

Meanwhile, the University of Oxford expressed concern that a TEF’s costs “would outweigh its benefits”.

But in his introduction to the consultation, Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson defended the government’s approach.

“Higher education should deliver lasting value to graduates,” he wrote. “While employers report strong demand for graduate talent, they continue to raise concerns about the skills and job readiness of too many in the graduate labour pool.”

The report cites the “vital role” universities have to play in the challenge to increase productivity within the wider economy, “the main driver of economic growth in the years to come”.

Currently, the Green Paper also outlines plans to merge HEFCE and the Office for Fair Access to create the Office for Students, a more market- and student-focused regulatory body.

This new regulator’s purpose would be to “empower, protect and represent the interests of students, employers and taxpayers” through assessing the quality of universities’ teaching with respect to a TEF.

At the same time, HEFCE’s responsibilities for research would be transferred to a new body, Research UK.

Oxford decried the possible separation of research and teaching as “deleterious”, while Cambridge called the proposed introduction of the OFS “not acceptable”.

“A university is not simply a system for the delivery of instruction to undergraduate students… It is also a nursery of future excellence in research, a provider of graduate courses across a wide range of subjects, and a collaborative learning community for its teachers and researchers,” Cambridge’s report states.

Any proposed regulatory architecture “needs to reflect these many different facets”, it continues.

Instead, the university advocates for the creation of an Office for Higher Education, to subsume the proposed remit of the OFS, as well as of the existing Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), to remedy the “basic flaw” in the government’s plans for the supervision of higher education.

The university expressed broad support for the establishment of a TEF and its potential to be a “simple and respected kitemark” of teaching and educational excellence.
But it cautions: “If a TEF is associated with an ability to increase tuition fees beyond inflation, students would be forced to choose between quality, as measured by a TEF, and affordability.”

The paper also warns that a TEF must also “respect difference” in the sector, and that any move to encourage “homogeneity” across higher education “would be highly damaging to the sector and to its global reputation, and would reduce student choice”.

A university spokesman declined to comment further on the original report and the contents of Cambridge’s response, telling Varsity: “It is not appropriate to add anything else at this stage.”