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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 May 2012
Non-controversially, the full version of this article argues that the crisis in British higher education will impoverish teaching and research in the arts and humanities; cut even more deeply into these areas in the post-1992 sector; and threaten the integrity of every small sub-discipline, including the history of medicine. It traces links between the Thatcherite reforms of the 1980s and the near-privatisation of universities proposed by the Browne Report and partly adopted by the coalition. The article ends by arguing that it would be mistaken to expect any government-driven return to the status quo ante. New ideas and solutions must come from within. As economic and cultural landscapes are transformed, higher education will eventually be rebuilt, and the arts and social sciences, including medical history, reshaped in wholly unexpected ways. This will only happen, however, if a more highly politicised academic community forges its own strategies for recovery.
1 ‘Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher Education’, <http://www.independent.gov.uk/browne-report>, accessed 3 December 2010; see also, the fine riposte by James Vernon, ‘The End of the Public University in England’, <http://www.reallyopenuniversity.wordpress.com/20/11/22/the-end-of–the-public-university-in-england/>, accessed 3 December 2010.
2 Rodney Lowe, The Welfare State in Britain since 1945, 3rd edn (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
3 H. Young, One of Us: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher (London: Macmillan, 1990), 414.
4 B. Harrison, Finding A Role? The United Kingdom 1970-1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 400.
5 Young, op. cit. (note 3), 402.
6 B. Harrison, ‘Mrs Thatcher and the Intellectuals’, Twentieth Century British History, 5, 2 (1994), 206–45.
7 Ironically, the best concise account remains, Vince Cable, The Storm: The World Economic Crisis and What it Means, rev. edn (London: Atlantic, 2010)
8 A. Blundell-Wisnall and P. Slovik, ‘The EU Stress Test and Sovereign Debt Exposure’ (Paris: OECD Financial Affairs Division, Working Papers on Finance and Private Pensions, no. 4, 2010), 8–11.
9 The Guardian, ‘Spending Review Axe Falls on the Poor’, 21 October 2010, 1.
10 No British tabloid devoted fewer than four highly visual pages to the ‘riots’. Key emphasis was given to the student who threw a fire extinguisher from the lower roof of the Conservative Party Headquarters and who has now been charged with attempted murder. For David Cameron’s interpretation of these events see ‘Cameron “worried” by student riot’, BBC Radio 4, Today, 11 November 2010. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/9178000/9178687.stm/>, accessed 3 December 2010.
11 Steve Smith, ‘Where is the Mandate to Change the World of Higher Education?’ Education Guardian Higher, 19 October 2010, 6. See also, Rebecca Attwood, ‘Mega-Quango would Control Funding, Access, Quality and Student Issues’, Times Higher Education, 14 October 2010, 8–9.
12 However, the up-front nature of the new fees system, and the exceptionally generous pay-back arrangements make it the most generous in the developed world. A fully qualified GP, earning over £120,000, will pay about £120 a month. If she loses her job, she will pay nothing. If she took a job for £30,000 she would pay £68 a month. Below £21,000 she would pay nothing. The fee rises are much less significant than the shrinkage of the higher education system as a whole and the eradication of places for thousands of qualified students.
13 Anushka Asthana and Rachel Williams, ‘Growing Outcry at Threat of Cuts in Humanities at Universities’, The Observer, 28 February 2010, 9.
14 For the tragically misconceived fees promise to students see ‘Liberal Democrat: Policies for Students and Young People’, <http://network.libdems.org.uk/manifesto2010/libdem_manifesto_2010.pdf>, accessed 25 January 2010.
15 See ‘Russell Group Response to the Browne Review of University Funding’, 10 October 2010, <http://www.russell-group-latest-news/121-2010/4544>, accessed 3 December 2010.
16 Note here, however, analogies with transfer practices between the Premier League and the lower divisions. ‘Research-active’ members of staff rapidly seek a position higher up the university ladder. Similarly, talented graduates search for a postgraduate place in a Russell Group or post-1963 institution. The post-1992 sector is repeatedly robbed by the Chelseas and Manchester Uniteds of the larger system.
17 Jeevan Vasagar, ‘Fears Cuts will Force Swaths of Universities to Close Down’, The Guardian, 19 October 2010, 15. The number of failing universities ear-marked for possible closure or take-over may be twenty.Confidential information from a vice-chancellor to the author.
18 On this and other aspects of the crisis see the brilliant Anthony Grafton, ‘Britain: The Disgrace of the Universities’, New York Review of Books, 8 April 2010, 32. Specifically on the Sussex situation see Gabriel Josopovici, ‘What are the Universities For? A Letter on the VC’s “Execrable” English’, <http//www.defendsussex.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/>, accessed 25 January 2011,
19 Nor should this be, as it might well be, an insular process. The reasons are provocatively set out by Martha C. Nussbaum, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010).
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