Opinion Panel

Many more people go to university following an enormous expansion of higher education. It has moved from an elite system in the 1960s, when 5-6% of young people went to university, to a mass system, with a 43% participation rate, and rising. If we returned to the 1960s, seven out of eight of today’s students [...]

Professor Nicholas Barr’s assertion that “university is largely free” is largely false. As he explains it, HE is only “free at the point of delivery”. This is like New Labour’s mantra for the National Health Service – which doesn’t mean you don’t pay for your treatment/ education later when your income rises above a poverty [...]

When I was a lad, students were leftwing and campaigned for progressive causes. So it’s good news that, last weekend, students campaigned to widen access. The bad news is that they went about it the wrong way. Contrary to their intentions, the anti-fees demo was effectively campaigning to entrench middle-class perks. How does the new [...]