The state of UK Universities...

Last year I heard Lord Patten speak on the future of British Universities. His opinion was that the elite universities can still pack their punch among the best in the world, with other world class institutions in the US, Continental Europe and some in developed pockets of Asia. What he was fearful of (and I share his view) is the decline in the all round quality of University education in the UK.

The Labour vision of seeing 50% of young people being 'university educated' has starved the country of skilled workers, flooded the education market with substandard - apparently academic - qualifications and left millions debted up to their eyeballs competing for the same number of jobs, albeit temporarily off the dole queue.

This is a con. The brutal fact is, exams and qualifications of any kind are separation mechanisms to sort society into broad paths. Supply and Demand does the rest and provides the jobs. The 50% target is fantasy, and people naively believe gaining a degree from any university will buy them a better life, when it could potentially set them back many years. Unfortunately, admirable crusades on social mobility by governments are expensive, and shamefully this cost has been pushed on to the young who don't know any better when at 17 they are confronted with a choice of the bright lights of university or the cold and unloving land of work.

Actually, the cost of education should be pushed on to the students themselves, but in exchange there must be value for money. Value for your debt. Currently, UK universities and students are caught in the no mans land of a lack of government funding and a drive to stay afloat from capped fees. The investment in students per head has reduced dramatically and with no free market to quench the thirst, there has been widespread cost cutting in the majority of universities. Only those extremely rich universities - namely Oxford and Cambridge - can afford to maintain what is a world class education for the same as those going to Bradford University or Liverpool John Moores.

So what prospect have you if you leave with a degree from a decent university? Well, luckily for you where you went and what you did still means something, and there will be jobs out there for your to throw your CV at. This whole farce has put more pressure on recruiters to separate the wheat from the chaff, and this is sometimes brutal, but it's just a nasty side-product of too many applicants from too many universities. In my opinion, whether hindered and stuttering at the beginning, cream will always rise to the top. Somehow, someday, the academic tend to align themselves where needed, the entrepreneurial will start their own venture from whatever position and the majority of those skilled workers will fine their role. Why then, is there a need for people to be indebted so early in their lives?

This is just another ingredient in a United Kingdom living on debt, and far beyond its means. The time has come to realise that a university degree is merely diluted when every other person holds one. There is a genuine need for those unsuited to a university education to skill up and seek alternative routes to success, without the unnecessary debt.

Lord Patten endorsed the opening of the UK higher education market, allowing universities to charge what they wanted for an education. This may not be necessary, although as he said, how long will it take for the UK to fall from providing the best education in the world, to the second, and maybe the third...?