The marketisation of our universities Luke Martell LSE blog , Nov 29 th 2013 Here are some values. Education, equal chances in life, citizenship, democracy, community, and the good of society and humans. They’re open to interpretation. Not everyone will support all of them. But Lord Robbins would have given them a second look. And here’s what’s happening to English and other UK universities . Because what’s happening there goes against all these values. In 2010 the UK government announced 100% cuts to the funding of most teaching at universities. To fill the gap, students’ contributions to fees in England trebled widely to £9000 a year or close to that. 12 years earlier higher education had been free. The government say the changes are necessary for deficit reduction, the reason also given for cuts and marketisation across health, welfare and local government. But this isn’t a necessity caused by deficits. Tuition fees, already low, are being abolished in Germany . In the UK there’s not less money involved. It's just that students cough up rather than taxpayers, without getting more for the greater contribution they make. Loans and defaults might actually cost the government more. And students could find interest rates hiked, so their debt is retrospectively increased. The marketisation of universities is a political choice, made without a democratic mandate. Changes are in line with Conservative ideology to reduce, privatise and marketise the public sector. They alter what a university and society are all about. It’s argued that working class applications haven’t been hit by students paying fees. But the data’s flawed . Since Robbins more people from all classes are going to university but the relative chances for working class people have reduced. Universities are being allowed to recruit more students with top A level grades. These are more from higher class backgrounds and disproportionately go to elite universities. So the well-off are being given extra spaces, on top of the advantage they already have. And the elite universities they apply to are being allowed to pull further away from the rest of society. At my university I’m not asked any more to develop courses to fill an educational gap or for the public good, only to get fee income in. Fees combined with education-for-employability and internal markets mean that universities are cutting areas such as adult education and expanding in subjects like business and management. Universities have been one thing Britain does well. But continental universities are beginning to look more attractive to Brits than UK universities do to overseas students witnessing high fees and anti-immigration policies. What were public universities remain theoretically not-for-profit. But the government are changing regulations for what you need to qualify as a university, to encourage for-profit providers to set up shop, subsidised by taxpayers money providing loans for their students. Government contributions to fees had allowed public universities to charge less than private providers but that disadvantage for for-profits has gone. We now have what are effectively two for-profit universities, the University of Law and BPP. A year ago there were none. 1