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As they publish their own ‘alternative white paper’ for higher education, academics claim the government’s plans are fundamentally misguided Hundreds of academics have signed a document, published today, that warns of dire consequences should the government’s white paper on higher education become law. The document, In Defence of Public Higher Education, endorsed by a wide range of prominent academics, including Stefan Collini, of Cambridge University, and Howard Hotson, of Oxford, offers an alternative to the government’s vision for the sector in the form of nine propositions about higher education’s value to society. Drawing on recent research, it also argues that the changes proposed are based on ideology rather than financial necessity, and will make no lasting savings. Campaigners hope it will lead to an autumn of debate and protest over the white paper’s proposals, which are due to come into effect next year. “The hope would be that it provides a well-formulated agenda on the future of higher education, in contrast to the one the government has railroaded through,” says Simon Szreter, professor of history and public policy at the University of Cambridge, who helped to draw up the document. “It is a counter to the breathtaking speed of the government programme and its reliance on an atrociously flimsy document, the Browne Review.” Today’s publication argues that the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding, chaired by former BP chief executive Lord Browne of Madingley, and the subsequent white paper, completely ignore the public value of higher education, concentrating instead on “the private benefits to individuals in the form of higher earnings deriving from investment in their human capital, and to the ‘knowledge economy’ in terms of product development and contribution of economic growth”. It suggests that this focus on students as consumers attacks the very values the prime minister believes would reverse the “moral decline” blamed for the recent riots. And it accuses the mission groups representing different kinds of universities, including the Russell Group and the 1994 Group of leading research universities, of lack of leadership and of failing to defend the values of public higher education while for-profit providers have successfully lobbied for their own interests. Nearly 400 academic campaigners, members of professional bodies such as the British Philosophical Association, and individuals have signed the “alternative white paper”, which was drawn up over the summer by a working group led by John Holmwood, professor of sociology at the University of Nottingham and founder of the Campaign for the Public University. He says: “The people signing up are very senior academics. They are saying, ‘At last there is a voice talking about public higher education and something other than questions of economic expediency’.” The document’s nine propositions are that higher education has public as well as private benefits and these public benefits require financial support; that public universities are necessary to build and maintain confidence in public debate; that public universities have a social mission and help to ameliorate social inequality; that public higher education is part of a generational contract in which an older generation invests in the wellbeing of future generations; that public institutions providing similar programmes of study should be funded at a similar level; that education cannot be treated as a simple consumer good; that training in skills is not the same as university education – something the title of a university should recognise; that a university is a community made up of different disciplines and of different activities of teaching, research and external collaboration; and finally that universities are not only global institutions, but also serve their local and regional communities. A separate appendix makes the case that switching the costs of tuition from grants to loan-backed fees may reduce the deficit in the short term, but is an accounting trick. In the long term, debt could increase as students default or write off loan repayments, and tax revenues from those who reject higher education as too expensive are lost. It also accuses the government of wanting eventually to introduce a pricing mechanism based on how much of the loans made to students studying specific degrees at specific institutions are repaid. “The commodification of higher education is at the secret heart of the white paper,” it argues. “The government seeks a differently funded sector, one which can provide new outlets for capital that struggles to find suitable opportunities for investment elsewhere.” Publication of the document comes a week after the end of formal consultation on the white paper and amid increasing criticism of government plans for HE. Responding to the consultation, Universities UK warned of “unintended consequences for students and universities” from the proposals, with potentially adverse effects on social mobility, student choice, institutional subject mix and the future viability of some institutions”. The 1994 Group warned that high-quality places for students could be lost, and science subjects could be badly affected. The Millennium+ thinktank called for the plans to introduce a market in university places to be withdrawn, while the British Academy, the UK’s national representative body for the humanities and social sciences, said the plans could damage the international reputation of UK higher education. Howard Hotson, professor of early modern intellectual history and a founding member of the Oxford University Campaign for Higher Education, says: “We offer fantastic value for money. The UK university system is astonishingly good. There is no intellectual justification whatsoever for radically overhauling it, and if you radically overhaul it, you can guarantee to make it worse.” He calls on academics and students to join forces to oppose the moves and predicts a “winter of discontent” including actions by students and academic unions. Campaigners expect further motions of no confidence in the universities minister, David Willetts, to follow votes at Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds and Bath earlier in the summer, and want to encourage parents and the general public to join the debate. The Local Schools Network has already backed today’s document. Melissa Benn, its co-founder, says: “Education is bigger than self-interest and a race to the top. If we sacrifice the idea of the education system being at the very centre of the social fabric we will pay a price in the long term.” Stefan Collini, professor of English literature and intellectual history at Cambridge, who has written a series of critiques of government higher education policy, warns that the proposals in the white paper misunderstand what universities are about. “It’s very important that academics who see the ways in which this policy is fundamentally flawed and misguided try to explain this and work for the long-term development of a better-grounded policy,” he says. “For that reason the alternative white paper makes a very valuable contribution.” Willetts has responded to critics by arguing that the success of British universities in research has been the result of a system that places intense competition in a wider legal framework and that the government’s proposals aim to achieve the same for teaching and the student experience. In a letter published in the London Review of Books in July he “pleaded guilty to believing in choice and competition”, but said that these should be rooted in a national culture, strong institutions and a set of moral understandings. University funding University administration University teaching Lecturers Access to university Students Higher education Education policy Harriet Swain guardian.co.uk