Universities must be a reason for optimism about the country’s future

Last week, Universities UK’s members came together, as we do three times a year, to take stock of the state of the university sector. We were joined by Ted Mitchell, the President of the American Council on Education and a personal hero of mine.

Ted joined us in Tavistock Square, where Universities UK has its headquarters, and where Charles Dickens once lived. Fittingly, he came in the guise of the ghost of Christmas yet to come. He told us about the onslaught of measures which have been taken by the Trump administration in relation to higher education and research: from the restriction of research funding on ideological grounds, to attacks on university autonomy with threats and legal action against universities which don’t comply with the administration’s demands.

Recently, the US federal government proposed a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” – a nine page document offering unspecified rewards in terms of access to federal funding for universities which voluntarily agreed to a set of commitments, covering issues ranging from eliminating the consideration of personal characteristics such as race or sex in admissions, to freezing tuition fees for five years.

It demanded universities prohibit employees from making statements on social or political matters on behalf of the university; screen international students for “anti-American values”; and eliminate departments that are “hostile to conservative ideas.” The compact was initially offered to nine universities. When eight of them refused to sign up, the administration expanded the offer to all 4,000 universities and colleges in the US. So far, two have agreed to sign.

Ted was asked to reflect on a simple question. Knowing what has happened, what would you do differently if you could turn back time by three years? He gave us five pieces of advice, and I think they are worth thinking about very seriously indeed.

Ted talks, we should listen

First: he would have listened more to the critics of the higher education system.

Second: he would have worked to identify the weaknesses in the sector – the things that universities and colleges are rightly criticised for. The sense that the US system is “rigged” against some students, particularly in relation to admissions; that there was a lack of transparency around the costs and financial support packages on offer, such that students often didn’t understand what the deal was; and the fact that about 40 per cent of students who entered higher education dropped out before completing their degree. He would have worked hard to take those issues “off the table”, removing the grounds for criticism by addressing the causes.

Third: he would have talked to those who were critical, especially at the political level, and asked what evidence would be necessary to convince them that “we are not who you think we are.” He would ask “how would you know we are doing better?”

Fourth: he would strive to “move the narrative” by “bringing your case to the people you serve” – focusing strongly on local and community impact, playing to the great strengths of the US university system which is, like ours, often loved locally when it is not thought of so fondly nationally.

Fifth and finally: he would have recognised that this is a 10-year problem which requires a long term solution, which will involve patiently building relationships and allies, but which starts with trying to get the hugely diverse US higher education system pulling in the same direction, allowing different institutions to focus on the things which matter most to them, but with a coherent guiding set of core principles behind them. These, he argued might be based on Justice Felix Frankfurter’s four essential freedoms of a university: freedom to determine who may teach, what may be taught, how it should be taught, and who may be admitted to study.

Here in the UK

What do we do with this advice? Universities UK has been thinking very hard about the reputation of the university sector for some time, and we have been paying close attention to the experience of our US colleagues.

Reading the compact I was doubly horrified, both by the extremity of the measures it proposed, and by the familiarity of the issues on the table. So I believe Ted’s advice is good, and that we need to take it seriously.

Over the next year Universities UK will start to implement a strategy that we have spent much of this year developing. At its heart is a set of simple ideas, which echo all of the points Ted made in his address to us.

We will listen and be responsive to others’ views, including those of our strongest critics.

We will seek to identify and address areas where we are vulnerable and will build the strategy around a willingness to be accountable and responsive. But we will do it in an unapologetically positive way, asking ourselves what the country needs of its universities now, in this decade, and the decades to come? How do we need to evolve to serve those needs? This is work we started with the Universities UK Blueprint, which was strongly reflected in the Westminster government’s post-16 white paper. We intend to position universities as a reason to be optimistic about this country’s future, the source of both historic and future success.

We will call on all parts of the political spectrum to back universities because they are one of the things that Great Britain and Northern Ireland are best at, and to work with us to develop a long term plan which will ensure that they can be what the nation needs them to be, for the next generation.

We will be clear that the country needs its universities to step up now, as we have many times in the past, to deliver on our promise as engines of the economy.

We will seek to build support around the idea that we’re at our best as a nation when we are making the most of talented people from all walks of life – just as universities changed in the Victorian era to ensure that working men (for they were predominantly but not exclusively men) could power the industrial revolution, through the creation of a new generation of arts and mechanical institutes which evolved to become some of our great civic universities.

We could do more to ensure that we can’t be accused of political bias as institutions, while defending the right of individuals to express their views, within the law, as guardians of free speech and academic freedom.

But first and most importantly, we owe it to our students to make good on the promises we offer them about the opportunities that a higher education opens up. We recognise that we are in a period of profound disruption to the labour market as a result of a new industrial revolution driven by artificial intelligence. We are on the cusp of a major demographic shift, as the young population starts to shrink. We must show that we can be agile, adapt and prepare students to be resilient and successful as the labour market changes around them, and serve a broader range of students in more diverse ways, at different points in their lives.

Finally, following Ted’s great advice, we will be patient and take a long term approach, and we will use that time to build relationships and allies, not by asking people to advocate for us, but by building a shared sense of vision about how we need to change to give this country the best chance of success.

Over the course of the next year, Universities UK will start to unfold our own strategy under the banner of Future Universities. We don’t want to do this alone, but want to align with anyone who thinks that this country’s success needs its universities in great shape, doing more of the great stuff, and fixing the things that need to be fixed. Come with us.