The U.S. isn’t the only country that has overexpanded its higher-education sector. The same thing has happened in Britain, as Douglas Carswell, a former member of Parliament and now the president of an American think tank, observes in today’s Martin Center article.
During Tony Blair’s time as prime minister, the U.K. embraced the notion that higher education was for everyone, and attendance began a rapid climb. After all, if college was good for some people, shouldn’t we encourage everyone to go?
Carswell writes, “UK universities have become a big business, and their business model has been to borrow to expand. In order to accommodate the 2.6 million students now in higher education, there has been a sustained building boom around university campuses over the past couple of decades, with lots of gleaming new buildings.”
The boom was financed with loads of debt. Sound familiar?
Carswell continues:
In order to maximise revenues, many UK universities have resorted to trying to attract ever larger numbers of overseas students, whom they can charge with higher fees. For some overseas students, paying those fees, almost irrespective of the quality of the education they get, is a price worth paying as a means of migration. American universities have seen a dramatic increase in overseas student numbers for similar reasons.
Just as here, universities in the U.K. began to focus more on bringing in the money than on quality education. Masses of students got degrees with decreasing value.
Carswell concludes, “Many British universities have become state-subsidised degree factories, churning out mediocre credentials that do little to equip students for what comes next. Perhaps it would be no bad thing if the number of students enrolling in universities fell, in America as well as in Britain.”
In both countries, government should have left higher education alone.