In 1992 the university system in the United Kingdom was on the brink of a massive expansion which over the next two decades turned out to be even greater than anticipated. I was opposed to this expansion believing it to be bad for the universities and for society in general. I kept bumping into the vague assumption that the more people who went to university the more “developed” a society would be and the more prosperous it would become. I was researching for a newspaper article on the subject and looked up some comparative statistics. In the just collapsed Soviet Union 54% of the age cohort went to university whereas in Switzerland the figure was 12%. Of course a large part of this is mere nominalism: Switzerland had many excellent forms of training, but they weren’t called universities whereas the USSR was a pioneer in calling every kind of adult educational institution a university even if its range of disciplines was narrow. Vladimir Putin’s second degree, for example, is from the St. Petersburg Mining University.

I was particularly interested in the Soviet figures because I had just returned from a visit to the State University of Tbilisi in Georgia which was experiencing the most extreme economic collapse of any of the former Soviet states (Tajikistan was second). Salaries were worth single figures of dollars per week. As an official visitor I was actually paid one, received in cash from a kiosk in a brown envelope; in 1992 it was still in roubles. To survive nearly all academics had land to grow things on which they could access or had other jobs or both. My closest collaborator was well connected and could drive me round in a Lada. When it had mechanical problems we went to a garage where the mechanic who mended it (very quickly and efficiently) greeted my friend very cordially: he was the senior professor of physics at the university. One fairly young colleague had neither land nor a second job and he freely admitted that he was going hungry. Quite understandably he shouted at me (with benefit of translator) about how much better the USSR had been than independent Georgia was.

The figures for “tertiary attainment” throughout the world published by the OECD are now much more samey though it is interesting to note that the UK has overtaken the USA, 57% to 51% so the one time leader in this statistic is now the principal example of stagnation. Russia is still higher than Switzerland, by 67% to 51%. But having more than half of the relevant age group go to university means different things in different societies. In much of the world it means attending a university in the city you live in which has large classes and flexible arrangements. It doesn’t cost much and is compatible with holding all sorts of jobs. In England (which is different from Scotland in this respect) it has traditionally meant going away to university for a relatively short but expensively provided experience which is, among other things, a rite of passage and a particular interpretation of the process of growing up. In my case I have to admit that, seen from the time of writing this article, I am a creature of the twentieth century. I was one of less than 5% who went to university and my education was paid for by other people in the form of grants and scholarships, something that is just not possible when the proportion exceeds 50%

For that matter I was a twentieth century academic, my retirement agreed in 2002 and effected in 2004. When I talk to contemporary academics I am usually in a state of incredulity tinged with guilt. A friend of a friend was recently asked by his university to re-apply for his job and strongly advised that, though he was a senior lecturer, he would be better placed if he actually applied for a lectureship at a lower salary. All of this – possible redundancy, effective demotion, a general sense of insecurity – was completely unknown in my career. It never crossed my mind that I could lose my job or face effective demotion. The issue for me in the 1980s was the question of whether I would lose “tenure” by accepting promotion as seemed to be implied by new legislation; the answer was that tenure in England only existed as custom and practice in common law and it was doubtful whether people in my position could ever lose it. In any case the financial position even when I left was good and buoyant with both my department and university well in financial surplus. I also had a bit of an issue at the turn of the century because I wanted to get rid of my job rather than hold onto it. After three applications and a fair amount of politicking I was able to secure early retirement.

Seen from the point of view of someone who was both a student and an academic employee in the previous century the current state of universities seems like a very bad deal for those involved, bad for society and ultimately unsustainable. The three propositions are logically distinct but causally connected. The certainties of my generation have evaporated; career prospects and job security have gone. And from a student’s of view The Week predicts that 2025 will be the worst ever year for graduate employment.

So far as society as a whole is concerned we have a very dysfunctional 5-45-50 split. That is to say there are 5% of the population who would have always gone to “good” universities and continue to do so. There are about 45% of the population who now go to university whereas they probably would not have done in previous eras. They usually have better jobs than the would have had if they had not gone to university, but in most cases they do not have better jobs than they might have achieved in a previous system, though now they start work later and in debt. And there are about half the population who now face a definite ceiling on career prospects and earnings because they are not graduates. After all even in my generation people were getting to the top of every kind of business and many professions like law, nursing and policing without going to university. And the most tragic aspect of the current system is that there are an unknown proportion of the lower half of the population who would have gone to university under the system of half a century ago but cannot now. My wife and four of her brothers grew up in a council house with one wage coming in. They all went to university and had successful careers, but they are all adamant that this would not or could not have happened if they had had to get into debt to go to university. (I, on the other hand, as the only child of comfortably off parents, must count myself among the 5%.) All four of the boys did variants of engineering and assumed, correctly as it turned out, that they would be able to get a relevant job with decent pay and prospects immediately after graduating. Now people from their background are squeezed at both ends incurring much higher debts and with poorer career prospects.

But the reasons to fear the collapse of the system is not that it’s bad but that it’s unfundable. In that respect it’s like the Roman Empire and the ancien regime. Over 100 universities are in serious financial difficulties. They tend, of course, to be the less prestigious. All forms of income are going down: domestic fees, overseas fees, research grants and what was rather irritatingly classified on committees I used to sit on as “earned income” (conferences and the like). In 2023 Helen Hayes, the (Labour) chair of the Commons Education Committee said that there was “a perfect storm bearing down on institutions”, but nothing seems to be done to weather this storm. On the contrary Universities UK estimated in June that decisions made by the current government have reduced university funding by £1.4 billion for 2025-6. (Is anyone else reminded of the scene in Independence Day where Bill Pullman as US president – and therefore considered the world leader in those days – manages to establish communication with the invading aliens and asks them what they want humanity to do, to which they reply”Die”?)

The most predictable of the four sources of income is surely domestic fees which have been going down throughout this decade. I think this reflects a very widespread disillusionment with universities. I move in very broad circles and hear many stories about universities which combine scepticism and cynicism as never before.. The sports journalism course where nobody gets a job as a sports journalist. The young relative who complains of the dirt and the profusion of rats where she has to live. The daughter of a friend who did an art course and says she knew more about art before she went than when she graduated. The parents who watch their offspring using AI to produce assessed work and conclude that the degree isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. All very well if it were free, but when you have to incur a five-figure debt not very attractive. I note that according to the NUS the largest extant student debt is £230,000. Thus I find it impossible to imagine this source of income rising and if fees are raised it is probable that people will still be willing to pay them to go to institutions seen as pathways to elite jobs, but not to the majority of universities. Defenders of the current system often argue that on average graduates are better off than those who do not go to university. But equally often the likes of Paul Wiltshire, who has had four children go to university in the fee-paying era, have pointed out that the average is irrelevant and that this is not true of marginal candidates meaning those whose qualifications would not have seen them at university in a previous period. Personally, I have six grandchildren currently in secondary school. Even a decade ago I would have assumed that they would all go to university, but now there is an issue which requires careful thought and personal judgement.

It is unthinkable that universities will close, isn’t it? To which I must reply that I have a pretty good record for for predicting that unthinkable declines and collapses would actually happen including those of the Soviet Union and the National Union of Mineworkers. The university sector has been bloated to an unsustainable level and is now bound to decline; the questions are by how much and how will it happen. At one end of the spectrum a government of a new party or an old party on a new trajectory may get into power and boldly and deliberately dismantle large parts of the system. As a competitor for public funding it doesn’t look good compared with health, defence and environment and we must bear in mind that the British constitution can allow nearly complete control over policy based on 40% of the vote. Such a government might institute a programme of closures and insist on the sale of assets and real estate. This is happening anyway: I note that the Eastbourne campus of the University of Brighton where I was a visiting professor has now gone. If such a government was seriously hostile it might pass a law penalising employment discrimination against non-graduates except in specified instances.

At the other end of the scale institutions may simply wither and contract like declining football clubs because nobody is prepared to pay for them. Some may die; some may even survive with an overseas presence but not a UK site. Even a moderate government is surely likely to encourage the sale of university assets including land. Perhaps there will be proposals to fund loans for only certain courses. (A difficult one: if I were in charge only purely academic courses would be funded whereas in reality it’s likely to be the opposite.) Future governments will almost certainly be involved in developing and encouraging shorter and cheaper forms of higher education. There were very good nurses and primary school teachers in the past who did not have degrees and surely there will be again.

Even a decade ago – and certainly two decades ago – individuals did not have to think very hard about whether they would actually benefit from going to university. And governments did not have to think very hard about whether the system could be maintained or was worth maintaining. Those easy certainties are now gone and the future of universities requires urgent thought. We’re still a long way off professors of physics moonlighting in garages, but we are heading in that direction. And as they also used to say in the century in which I attended meetings, “the status quo is not an option”.

Lincoln Allison July 2025

(An edited version of this article was published by Times Higher Education in August 2025.)