Mastodawn

Emeritus Prof Christopher May

The elite universities faced with rising costs, falling graduate salaries & fragile market position, will be calling for 'weaker' universities to be closed, wound-up or stopped from awarding degrees.

The head of KCL may not be putting it in those terms yet, but the elite universities clearly need to stem the flow of graduates from lower ranked institutions that are diluting the value of their graduates' degrees.

The Post-92s have a fight on their hands!

#universities
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/jan/03/uk-university-degree-no-longer-passport-to-social-mobility-says-kings-vice-chancellor

UK university degree no longer ‘passport to social mobility’, says King’s vice-chancellor

Prof Shitij Kapur says there are too many graduates and degree is now just a ‘visa’ to enter professional world

The Guardian

Emeritus Prof Christopher May Jan 3

that's not quite how it happened, but you are right in the sense that the educational policy move to make more universities by obverting previous polytechnics was ill-thought out;

that said the ex-polytechnics ('pst-92s') actually do mostly a better job in terms of 'economic value added' in that they take people with weaker school result & get them through a degree, while the best university take excellent student & get them a degree (much easier); I say this as supporter of humanist education.

vicarvernon Jan 3

@ChrisMayLA6 which raises the question, why should 'elite universities' have any more right to an existence than a new establishment?

@vicarvernon @ChrisMayLA6

I dont think so no. However I think another question is whether degrees should be universal or just for the cleverest students.

If universal, then perhaps government should fully fund them (E.g. Bring back grants). The cut off of free schooling at 18 seems even more arbitrary now.

The old argument of "why should a bus driver fund someone's uni degree" is still flawed (he needs the engineer to design the roads etc)

Society benefits, so why not fund?

Emeritus Prof Christopher May Jan 4

@Pionir @vicarvernon

If you've not seen it, a couple of years ago I wrote this on exactly the issue you end with - how should we end the wide social good that university education represents?

https://northwestbylines.co.uk/news/education/who-should-pay-for-students-to-go-to-university/

Who should pay for students to go to university?

Differing views on tuition fees reflect differing conclusions about who captures its benefits; the students, society as a whole or both.

North West Bylines | Powerful Citizen Journalism

Martin Rundkvist Jan 3

@ChrisMayLA6
I have no opinion about which universities to close. But it's trivially true that the worldwide labour market only demands a certain number of uni graduates per year, and very different numbers from different subjects.

If the UK has been opening new universities mainly to keep the kids off the streets, improve unemployment figures and create jobs in rural areas, then of course it must have led to a graduate glut on the labour market.

@mrundkvist We shouldn't have universities that only teach what's needed for the labour market. @ChrisMayLA6

Martin Rundkvist Jan 3

@pettter
Oh cool, you have inherited wealth and don't need to borrow any money to study? And you don't need your degree to lead to a paying job? Congrats, man!!!

L'égrégore André ꕭꕬ Jan 3

@mrundkvist @pettter one problem with "needed for the labor market" is that it's rarely stable enough to have the predictions/demand at year one keep up at year three/four, so a lot of the ones wooed by promises of a bright future after graduation will meet a grim reality.

Martin Rundkvist Jan 3

@Mabande @pettter

You're talking to someone who is about 5 cm from being a specialist in Modern Latvian Poetry. That's the level of unemployableness we're dealing with.

L'égrégore André ꕭꕬ Jan 3

@mrundkvist @pettter D…did a career counselor tell you modern Latvian poetry would lead to a well paid job? 😳

L'égrégore André ꕭꕬ Jan 3

@mrundkvist @pettter (point being: there are a lot of kids _right now_ being told to study things they're told are "in demand" who'll find they studied the exact wrong thing cause their sector's been full for a while)

Martin Rundkvist Jan 3

@Mabande
We're kind of in agreement. Because there are lots of uni majors that kids are *never* told are in demand. Yet we continue to fund those programmes.

L'égrégore André ꕭꕬ Jan 3

@mrundkvist We're very much not in agreement. I think it's fine to let people follow their interests – if someone wants to get a masters in comics history and work as a janitor? Let 'em.
What I don't think is fine is tricking them into thinking what they study will automatically lead to a career when it won't. Which is what'll happen if the uni's are fully "labor market aligned" (not least because the market will always want a surplus of labor to push down wages).

Martin Rundkvist Jan 3

@Mabande
I am a technocratic socialist. Wasting people on useless degrees is not a good way to play Sim City. I am not kidding.

There are lots of degrees that give you a high chance of a job, and others a low chance. They are not all roughly the same in this respect.

L'égrégore André ꕭꕬ Jan 3

@mrundkvist Thing is, the Venn diagram of [degrees that gives you a high chance of a job] and [degrees touted by the market as guaranteed to give you a job] is far from a perfect circle.
The former isn't even fully inside the latter.

And the position that a higher education must be in service to the market is frankly both boring and bit authoritarian 🤷

Martin Rundkvist Jan 3

@Mabande
My perspective on this is coloured by years of teaching Scandinavian Prehistory to future librarians and bus drivers.

Sure, you're right, it's boring to be told to avoid the Dance Academy. But it's even more boring to drive a bus while burdened by the study debt from years at the Dance Academy.

L'égrégore André ꕭꕬ Jan 3

@mrundkvist But you didn't say avoid the low employment education you said they basically shouldn't exist (at least not funded).
I'm saying students should be (made) aware of the prospects so they can decide if they still want to risk it (anyone studying ballet knows there's a slim chance even if they're top 5 in class).
I know brilliant biologists who've never worked as such because while the last 25 years of prognosis has been "in demand" the market hasn't actually been that good at all.

John Faithfull 🌍🇪🇺🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🧡✊🏻✊🏿Jan 3

@ChrisMayLA6 It's just power and influence. Lots of good places will be lost. The usual suspects will go from strength to strength. ☹️

Emeritus Prof Christopher May Jan 3

I agree; I've taught at a post-92 & a top 10 and the former did a much better job for the students

John Faithfull 🌍🇪🇺🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🧡✊🏻✊🏿Jan 4

@ChrisMayLA6 and lots of great departments in non-Russell Group universities are also being targeted. 😭😠

Peter 💙 Stevens Jan 3

How many degree courses in AI prompting do we need?

Marc Rothera Jan 5

@ChrisMayLA6 Devious use of 'an' in here, they were not educating 'an' elite they were educating 'the' elite (alongside a couple of grammar school lottery winners).

Maybe it's time to revisit the missing part of Lord Browne's tuition fee plan (where fees are 'unlimited' but the figure over the state funded threshold is footed by the institution and they join the queue, behind the state, for repayment).

Let's see some money put where mouths are.