Introduction

The argument in this book is that mass higher education, for all its multiple and irreversible achievements, is experiencing a general crisis. This crisis can be attributed in part to contradictions that may be inherent in the project itself.

The most important of these contradictions is between the promise of wider opportunities (and outcomes) for all and the emergence of a new graduate class, no longer perhaps framed so oppressively in terms of gender, race or even social class, but nevertheless still a middle class from which key sections of the community are excluded. The graduate class itself is also strongly segmented as the result of the emergence of a more explicit hierarchy within, calibrated by types of institution. This hierarchy continues to reflect social and cultural advantage as much as intellectual merit. Both this new class and the hierarchy within it seem to mock the possibilities of a democratic higher education.

A second contradiction is between the belief that the expansion of higher education would be a major driver of a new skills- and knowledge-based economy and its apparent reality – the production of a mass graduate population. That mass population is sometimes seen as over-educated, or at any rate inappropriately or miseducated, and many graduates struggle to find satisfying jobs and careers. Once again, the graduate workforce is increasingly segmented between those in elite – or, if not elite, highly remunerated – occupations; those in the expert and technical professions; and those who, despite their high level of education, are under- or precariously employed and may sometimes enjoy limited career satisfaction. Such a segmentation has the potential for increasing social discontent: the able but under-employed or under-appreciated have always been a restless force in history. In any case, it hardly accords with the optimistic vision of a knowledge society.

A third contradiction is between the ideal of universities as self-governing communities of students and scholars, and the contemporary reality of universities as corporate organisations. The communitarian values of the former are mocked by the competitive imperatives of the latter. The habitus of the university has also changed profoundly. Mass expansion has often been blamed. But, as has been argued in earlier chapters, it is not necessarily the only culprit; organisational shifts towards more corporate forms across wider society are also important.