I’ve just invited AC Grayling to attend the Aldwych Group handover session. Is it because I agree with the New College of Humanities? No. Is it because I want to be controversial? Certainly not. As far as i can tell this whole palava isn’t even going ahead anymore but I want to get a point across none the less - because I think that what he has done is indeed very clever.
I will not believe the hype that this NCH has been created entirely as a profit-making establishment. With no research output and fees set at the same level as your average international student, I’m not convinced that profits will be that high – especially not if they are flying in high-profile lecturers from across the world. And so what if some jobsworth has exposed that the one-to-one tutorials probably won’t be with those same high-profile lecturers? It’s still promising what we’ve all been hoping for – a personalised education where we can truly feel like members of the academic community rather than a burden on our over-worked lecturers and their research.
The truth is - Grayling’s initiative is intelligent. The government (past and present) are attempting to revolutionise a sector that didn’t really want to be revolutionised, they have put regulations on a sector that doesn’t really want to be regulated (see: student numbers), and worse, they have lured this same sector in to chaos with funding cuts that are killing off anything that isn’t considered “economical”. Universities have been forced to look like coke dealers, enticing youngsters in to their dens of adrenaline-inciting knowledge. A first just a little taste at an affordable price – it makes us look cool to employers and if anything it’s a brilliant form of escapism from the yokel village-life we have all become bored of. Then - once we’re hooked – the bill starts to rise, until it has become an unrealistic burden on our bank accounts. So the government starts handing out loans and we are long-term indebted to the government in its role as cartel manager. These loans are at an ever growing rate of interest and it is unlikely that many of us will ever be able to pay it back. At least in this game we don’t end up paying with our lives, I hope.
Does it really cost £16-18,000 a year to educate at an undergraduate level? I don’t have all of the facts but that is what they tell us. Without financial transparency we will never know if that sum is just a ploy for universities to get money out of the government and the government to get money out of students. But I’m warming to the idea that at the moment we are all losing at this game – including the taxpayer.
So, in comes Grayling with his New College of Humanities. It’s like a cleaner, upper-class drug. The education is pure, and is delivered to you on a silver platter. Who cares if it’s not economical – humanities are fun. If you have the cash, he’s got the knowledge. If you don’t have the cash but you do have the minerals for it – you can still get in on it. Personally I don’t think enough attention has been given to the number of scholarships they are intending to offer – well above what most top universities are going to offer. Why shouldn’t those who can afford help those who can’t? That’s another choice those choosing to go the NCH will be making. Surely it’s a good thing?
Everybody seems to win. The taxpayer will no longer be subsidising ‘lazy’ students. Students (albeit only 375 of them) will be getting a top-class education without needing to pass through gruelling A-levels or a lengthy, competitive and often soul-destroying interview process. The academics will be able to teach however they like without over-regulation and probably (though I’m not sure) without having to adhere to as many quality assurance guidelines.
The only thing we seem to lose is that sense of public good behind a publically subsidised education. But at £9k a year I’m going to predict that that ‘sense’, if we can even claim there is such a thing, will wane as students become accustomed to consumerism in education. To return to my previous analogy the government wants our money to go where the good stuff is, not where we are going to feel the cosiest sense of public duty. The NCH is finishing this exhausting game of charades for us, not because Grayling wants to, but because it is a simple solution. I can’t imagine that he has set up the NCH because he ‘hates education’ as one FaceBook group states; the big question is how should we react?
Well, I for one am not going to jump on any bandwagons just yet. I’m going to take my signature approach to these sorts of things: the ‘wait and see’ approach. It could go one of two ways – it will either flounder and the predictions of “thick middle class kids buying their way to a BA” will come true or it might help to save humanities and show up universities with poor widening access records. It’s probably not going to be for everyone, but I’ll tip my hat to him for putting his neck on the line to try this idea out.
