Public universities are under assault

By Peter Scott. Both defenders of the 'ivory tower' and market modernisers believe higher education should be more 'private', says Peter Scott, but we must defend public institutions at all costs.
An unholy alliance is slowly forming between traditionalist defenders of the university as an "ivory tower" and market-obsessed modernisers determined to transform higher education into a consumer good. Both have come to the – mistaken – conclusion that the idea of the public university must be abandoned. For very different reasons, of course. The traditionalists despair of ever seeing an arms-length state generously funding autonomous universities again.
Alarmed by the toxic mix of privatisation and nationalisation promised by the government's current reforms, they nevertheless see a chink of light in higher fees. Why not go the whole way, forgo residual state support and escape the tightening regulatory net by charging even higher fees, their impact softened, of course, by generous scholarships for the poor but bright?
So the idea that some universities should "go private" is slowly but steadily gaining ground. Some have reached this conclusion with relish. It is high time that the Mephistophelian bargain between universities and the state, struck in naively happier times, was torn up. Others have reached a similar conclusion with agonising regret. If the essential character and freedoms of the university are to be preserved, it would be better to have privatisation on our terms than theirs, they argue. For market-mad modernisers, it is all much simpler. To root out what remains of the universities' monopoly, it is time to flood higher education with private providers, the more red-in-tooth-and-claw the better.
A new higher education-lite is needed sans academic freedom, sans critical inquiry, sans liberal education, sans research and scholarship, sans everything. These new private providers will focus instead on customer satisfaction, market accountability and value for money – like banks and supermarkets. So for traditionalists, higher education needs to be more "private" to resist the market. For modernisers, higher education needs to be more "private" because the market is the measure of all things. No matter. Either way the public university is finished.
On the contrary, the public university is like democracy – a flawed institution perhaps, but so much better than all the alternatives. The reason is that higher education is a public good – not (just) in the technical economists' sense that large public benefits accrue that cannot be allocated to individual beneficiaries, but in terms of more fundamental social and cultural values. There are three compelling reasons for keeping higher education public. The first is the witness of history. Universities have played a central role in the construction of national identities.
Scottish universities have contributed at least as much to the identity of Scotland as its on-off parliament or established Presbyterian Church. Exactly the same can be said about the great land-grant universities in the US, or German universities in the 19th century, or universities across Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. All distilled some essence of their nations, for good or ill. More practically, the state has stepped in to make good the deficiencies of tuition fee, industrial and philanthropic funding. The greatly extended systems of higher education and research we possess today simply would not exist without public patronage. The University of Buckingham may be a counter-example, but it is a tiny one, with 2,000 students – the size of a small faculty in a standard university.
The second reason is that science can only flourish in an open environment. If research findings are corralled by proprietary restrictions or commercial constraints, they cannot be properly tested. Of course, great philanthropic foundations support open research. But private interests do not, and cannot. State funding, for all the clutter of politically generated "themes" and "priorities", is the best guarantee of open science.
The final reason is that universities act upon that most sensitive of all interfaces, between academic excellence and democratic rights. Fair access and widening participation are not, as some in the Russell Group seem to believe, irritating impositions by leftwing politicians; nor are they acts of noblesse oblige charity.
Instead these movements, sadly in full retreat from their Blair–Brown climax, help to reconcile the competing claims of elitism and entitlement. And they can only do so within the context of the public university rooted in the needs and aspirations of the "common wealth", that older and more resonant word for the state. In one sense, the public university is safe. Oxford and Cambridge are not about to forgo their public funding for research or science and engineering subjects – now or ever. Nor is the system about to be swamped by private providers. The most enthusiastic privatisers still want public money, but by the back door. But, in another sense, the public university is threatened because its legitimacy is questioned, whether thoughtlessly or purposively. It needs, and deserves, to be defended.
• Peter Scott is professor of higher education studies at the Institute of Education