In the 15th century, adventurers tired of the grind of lengthy overland travel and entered “the era of uncharted waters”. With the European referendum imminent, it appears there are those who wish to prolong this era.
For higher education, the debate around EU membership has largely focused on student mobility and access to European research grants. About 15,000 UK-based students take advantage of the Erasmus+ exchange schemes each year to study in other European countries, with about twice as many coming in the other direction. On top of this there are roughly 125,000 non-UK EU students enrolled on degree courses in the UK, paying home fees and eligible for student loans. And researchers in the UK can apply for European grants, which in the current Horizon 2020 scheme amounts to a fund of more than €70bn (£56bn) over six years.
What would happen if the UK left the EU? The doomsday prediction is that all this would disappear. It would be the end of mass year-abroad education. EU students would stop coming to the UK, and we would see large-scale course cancellations, redundancies and perhaps the closure of some universities. The UK research endeavour would be significantly scaled back with the loss of substantial research funding.
Those favouring exit brush away these points. First, everything is open to negotiation. We could leave the EU but make separate agreements so that the higher education sector remains broadly untouched.
Alternatively, it is said, we can make even better arrangements. Students took a year abroad before we entered the EU, and many travel to non-EU countries. We could replicate something like the current situation, but this time on our own terms rather than following bureaucratic EU rules. As for EU students coming to the UK, we could charge them overseas student fees, which are roughly double the home fees they currently pay. High fees might halve numbers, so revenues would remain stable but class sizes could fall, or numbers could be made up with UK students. And as for research funding, the government could recycle the money it would have paid the EU into research funding, again under our control, and hence there could be an overall benefit.
If all this is possible, why is the higher education sector so gloomy about the prospect of exit? One reason is that many people in higher education are focused on a rather bigger picture. Economic costs and benefits come and go, but the fruits of political cooperation are of a different order. If we want to ensure there is no return to the European bloodbaths of the first half of the 20th century, or even the cold war of the second half, a European Union is probably our best bet. Worries about student mobility seem rather superficial by comparison.
But even on the small picture, the arguments are tortuous. Many outcomes are possible, but which will be actual? And in what time frame?
One problem is that while there are campaigns providing reassurances about our future outside the EU, no one is (yet) in charge. Hence anything said about the new world beyond the EU is pure speculation. This referendum is not like an election between parties that have laid out their manifesto promises. Consequently, no one will be able to claim a mandate for any particular action, or feel pressure to meet their promises. Anything is possible, but much will depend on the agreements EU bureaucrats are prepared to make. And a little bit of retaliation, and a lot of delay, would not be out of the question.
True, travelling through uncharted waters can be exhilarating, and no one knows what we will discover. But with so much at stake there is something to be said for keeping our feet firmly on dry land.
