I left school at 16. I didn’t go to university until I was 41. By then, I knew exactly why I needed higher education.
I wanted to build a career in the education sector, and I was pretty sure that trying to do that without a degree would be impossible. But the route back was not easy. I had to make choices, take risks and reorganise my life around a system that was still largely designed for people taking their first degree at 18 or 19.
This is one of the reasons I have spent so much of my career interested not only in who gets into higher education, but in how they get there, when they get there, and whether the routes available to them represent realistic options.
It is also one of the reasons driving the roles I have taken since I got my degree.
I have worked across many different parts of higher education: UCAS, the Open University, the University of Leicester, the Dyson Institute, the London Interdisciplinary School, and advisory roles in education technology and AI. Most recently, I have joined the board of QAHE as non-executive Chair. I’ve had a ringside seat to observe what works for whom in these different models.
I care deeply about traditional universities and I know how transformational the campus experience can be. For many students, the three-year residential degree remains one of the great educational opportunities this country offers.
But it no longer works for enough people.
Default swap
The government’s latest attack on a “degree by default” culture is not wrong to question whether a full-time degree at 18 should be treated as the automatic route to a successful life. Ministers are right that young people need stronger technical, vocational and apprenticeship options. They are right that some courses do not deliver the outcomes students were promised. They are right that education should connect more effectively to work. And we can all see that the skills needed in employment are changing under our feet.
But if “no degrees by default” becomes a slogan for simply doing less higher education, it will miss the point.
Take the minister’s warning last week that “too many franchised and poor-quality courses do not offer a good deal to young people – selling the dream then leaving students in the lurch.” Notice the frame: young people. But franchised and partnership provision is not, in the main, a parallel pipeline for 18-year-olds – it disproportionately serves older, returning, part-time and commuter learners, the very people a lifelong learning system is supposed to reach. Judging the model by whether it serves school-leavers misses precisely the population it is best placed to serve.
If government wants to signal that people do not have to take all their higher education immediately after school or college, then the system has to provide credible alternatives later.
That means building what I think of as the civic architecture for lifelong learning. The post-16 white paper talks about this too, in terms of training not just once, but for a lifetime, and about building a system that supports the skilled workforce the economy needs. The Lifelong Learning Entitlement should be an important part of that architecture. In principle, it moves us away from a single front-loaded model of student finance and towards a system where people can draw on support over a longer period of their lives. The government has also trailed the idea of “break points” within degrees, so that students can gain recognised qualifications as they progress and return later if they choose. This was mooted in the Augar Review and I’ve written about its potential to boost the currency of Level 4 and Level 5 qualifications in the past.
Flexibility of operation
But who will actually deliver this provision? Who will design and pilot new delivery models, ensure they are high quality, run and manage the teaching facilities, support non-traditional students, and award the qualifications that could be so transformational? Can this be done quickly and flexibly enough in large multi-faculty research and teaching institutions, many of which are financially strained?
This is where the potential for strategic partnership provision becomes much more important than the sector sometimes allows. Partnership provision is often discussed defensively, as though franchising were a problem to be managed rather than a model to be optimised. That is partly because there have been poor examples. Weak governance, poor recruitment practice and insufficient oversight have damaged confidence. The government is right to strengthen regulation where public money, quality and student interests are at risk. Larger franchise providers are now being brought more directly into OfS registration requirements, which is a significant and sensible development.
But it is a mistake to allow the worst examples to define the whole model.
At its best, embracing more not less partnership provision – rigorously regulated, with mature governance, and proper checks and balances – will allow universities to extend their reach, test new approaches, deliver in new locations and support students whose lives do not fit neatly around established institutional rhythms. It combines the academic authority and quality assurance of a university with the operational flexibility, student support and responsiveness of a specialist partner.
If ministers are serious about moving beyond “degrees by default”, they need to avoid replacing one narrow default with another. The goal should not be to push people away from higher education. It should be to make higher education available at the right time, in the right form, and with the right support.
That means more than embracing a broader choice architecture: three-year degrees, degree apprenticeships, higher technical qualifications, modular learning, accelerated routes, local and commuter models, online and blended delivery. It also needs a broader delivery architecture including high-quality, regulated partnerships between universities and specialist providers.
I know from experience that the moment when higher education becomes most valuable is not always the moment when you leave school. Sometimes it comes much later, when a learner knows what they need, why they need it and how it will change their life.
The system should be ready for them when they get there.
