The current settlement feels permanent, which is the usual sign that it was built recently and by people who are still alive.
This chapter traces the route. Chartered corporations with genuine independence. Civic universities founded by industrial cities that wanted engineers. A buffer body that passed public money to institutions while stopping ministers from directing it. Robbins and a managed expansion. The end of the binary divide. Then audit, comparison, contribution, fees — and finally a system in which the state stopped paying directly for most undergraduate teaching while regulating the sector more intensively than ever.
That last step is the hinge of the whole book. Market rhetoric intensified precisely as direct public funding retreated, and regulation grew rather than receded. Autonomy was never absolute. What changed was the form the control took, and what it was willing to pay for.
Universities are free to manage decline, provided they do so competitively, transparently, inclusively, compliantly and without frightening the voters.
Regulated to Fail, Chapter 1
Where this goes next
This is the question the chapter opens with and the mechanism it identifies. What it concludes — and what follows from it — is in the book.
Get the book