Universities make Theresa May’s Conservatives uneasy. Their manifesto might set out promises for research funding, but it is also full of sticks with which to beat higher education. Read closely, it gives us a Tory vision of a perfectly British, post-Brexit university: one that looks inward at local communities, rather than outward at global networks.
For universities, their ideal vision for higher education would be a world with frictionless movement of students, researchers and ideas. Meanwhile, vice-chancellors have spent much of this century fantasising about freedom from state control.
But May’s Tories aren’t having it. Moving higher education into the Department for Education was symbolically important, indicating a view of universities not as independent businesses but as part of a national educational system. This manifesto goes one step further, introducing policy levers to get universities to address government priorities, from niche industrial research to training more doctors.
Reading between the lines is necessary, since the manifesto is devoid of detail. For the revived technical education sector, do they have in mind a system of differential fees according to an institution’s record of repayment? Or maybe it will never happen. Perhaps they would rather like us to think of government as a strict headteacher, with a big stick behind the door.
The issue that has rightly focused attention across the sector is international students. The manifesto proclaims: “We will toughen the visa requirements for students, to make sure that we maintain high standards.” The curious thing about this sentence is not just the commitment, but the justification.
What does it mean? Is it concerned with standards of visa compliance or standards of education? Or perhaps there’s something more fundamental at work here. It’s an anxious sentence. It says: “Don’t go thinking you know better than me.”
This is not to say that all their ideas are bad. Indeed, Universities UK has responded positively to some of them. There’s a proposal to “build up the investment funds of our universities”, enabling them “to enjoy the commercial fruits of their research”. There’s also a reiteration of the industrial strategy’s commitment to targeted research funding in certain fields.
But even these proposals are still fundamentally aimed at focusing universities on serving their local area. Universities would argue that global recognition and local influence are symbiotic. But the Tories, trailing their distaste for “citizens of the world”, are suspicious. They want to ensure that universities create “opportunities for local people, especially those from ordinary working backgrounds”. They want technical colleges to partner with “leading” universities (a phrase that would have me worrying if I were at a “non-leading” one).
Ultimately, the manifesto is a determined effort to remould an idea of the university from the clay of British exceptionalism. After all, this is a document that positions the UK as a “champion of free trade”. It even uses a metaphor from medieval chivalry to make a former colonial power seem distinctive. It’s about remembering we’re a little bit special after all. Accordingly, we’re given a university of “high standards” and Nobel laureates, recognised in global league tables while maintaining an arm’s length approach to the messy business of globalisation.
At one moment the manifesto declares that the government must “enable top scientists to work here”. What’s perhaps most revealing about this statement is its easy assumption that top scientists will actually want to buy into the Tories’ model of a British university. They – like international students, existing academics in UK universities, and all those other potential migrants – may very well decide to go elsewhere.
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