British Free Education Is at Risk

British universities, groaning under the burden of a huge increase in student numbers, are warning that the tradition of a free education is at risk. The universities have threatened to impose an admission fee on students to plug a gap in revenue if the government does not act to improve their finances and scrap some public spending cutbacks.

The government responded to the universities' threat by setting up the most fundamental review of higher education for a generation, under a non-party troubleshooter, Sir Ron Dearing.

One in three school-leavers enters higher education, five times the number when the last review took place thirty years ago.

Everyone agrees a system that is feeling the strain after rapid expansion needs a lot more money—but there is little hope of getting it from the taxpayer and not much scope for attracting more finance from business.

Most colleges believe students should contribute to tuition costs, something that is common elsewhere in the world but would mark a revolutionary change in Britain. Universities want the government to introduce a loan scheme for tuition fees and have suspended their own threatened action for now. They await Dearing's advice, hoping it will not be too late—some are already reported to be in financial difficulty.

As the century nears its end, the whole concept of what a university should be is under the microscope. Experts ponder how much they can use computers instead of classrooms, talk of the need for lifelong learning and refer to students as "consumers".

The Confederation of British Industry, the key employers' organization, wants even more expansion in higher education to help fight competition on world markets from booming Asian economies. But the government has doubts about more expansion. The Times newspaper agrees, complaining that quality has suffered as student numbers soared, with close tutorial supervision giving way to "mass production methods more typical of European universities."