England’s universities have reached an inflection point. Financial pressures are severe and worsening. With a new government in office, there is an opportunity to undertake a thorough reappraisal, and the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has signalled she is ready to do so. She rightly recognises the economic value and social importance of our world-leading university sector. But universities must not be complacent. The new government cannot resolve all of their problems. As universities are autonomous institutions, the onus is on the sector as much as on ministers to offer up solutions, and the new blueprint report from Universities UK, due to be released this week, embraces this responsibility.
I want to see a proper widening of access to Britain’s highest-ranking universities. As well as providing a first-rate teaching deal to their students, they must be powerhouses of social mobility if they are to retain political and public support. A disproportionate number of privileged students from well-off backgrounds are represented at our highest-tariff institutions when we know there are many others with real potential who do not manage to overcome the disadvantages of birth and upbringing to get to university. Those who do succeed from the state school sector often do so because their parents with the means can, and do, game the system by moving closer to the best-performing state schools.
