Gaby Hinsliff (Britain’s universities are in freefall – and saving them will take more than funding, 29 March) says “the story [of decline] starts with the freezing of tuition fees in 2017”.
However, this was the outcome, not the cause, of a crisis that began with the decision by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government in 2010 to treble tuition fees and to build a “market” in UK higher education. Since then, policymakers and university managers have pursued a disastrous ideological project to turn higher education into a commodity rather than to treat it as a public good.
Students have been burdened with unsustainable amounts of debt, staff wages have not kept up with inflation and the sector has been plagued by an audit culture that undermines high-quality teaching and research. The market has clearly failed, with staff and students set to bear the costs of course closures and job cuts.
The question now is whether we can mount an effective resistance to defend a vital public asset, or whether we are prepared to see our universities – along with jobs and futures – wither on the vine.
Prof Des Freedman
Goldsmiths, University of London
• Gaby Hinsliff believes universities are in freefall and says “nobody seems to have a clear answer” as to what and who universities are for. Here is one answer, from a 91-year-old emeritus professor. Universities have three equal purposes. First, to accumulate, store and disseminate useful knowledge; second, to engage in research to increase useful knowledge; and third, to help students acquire useful knowledge beyond what they have learned elsewhere.
“Useful knowledge” embraces social, technological, historical, ecological and many other bundles of integrated understandings that are judged worthwhile by someone claiming the authority to designate such knowledge as useful. That authority is given by their peers, mostly in universities. Which adds a fourth purpose to them: to ensure that seeking useful knowledge is based on rational, logical and reliable processes, embracing the widest range of human concerns and disseminating that knowledge effectively.
Michael Bassey
Coddington, Nottinghamshire
• Gaby Hinsliff says that we need to think more about the function of universities, but there is little agreement about their role. Is that a bad thing? A university was where a Covid vaccine was developed. Can those researchers meet the teaching needs of a 20-year-old? I recently saw a brilliant programme about the bluestones around Stonehenge, with several professors explaining their discoveries. Where does that fit in with the purpose of a university?
The health needs of a community are often overseen by a university hospital, with research and training overlapping. If a Venn diagram of important activities in the country is drawn, the most overlaps would be a good description of what a university does. Lose them in the name of streamlining and organisation, and the country would poorer.
John Sommer
Bristol
• We need to decide what we as a society require from universities. A restructuring that offers apprenticeships, provides essential public workers and ensures a rich cultural heritage is a worthwhile investment.
Sally Bates
Cotgrave, Nottinghamshire
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