YESTERDAY, Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak announced the latest attack on higher education with proposals to ‘limit the access’ to university degrees in England that the Tories deem ‘low value’.
The definition of low value for Sunak and the Tories is based entirely on what students might earn in the years following graduation.
Under this latest plan, the Office for Students, the body which regulates higher education in England, will be required to ‘ensure that courses which fail to deliver good earnings are subject to stricter controls.’
The Tories were reluctant to spell out which university courses are to have their numbers regulated, but clearly it is aimed at courses in the arts and humanities which are not known for producing the high earners – the next generation of bankers and financial entrepreneurs – that capitalism requires.
What bankrupt British capitalism does not require is working class youth at university when they could be used as a cheap labour force working in the gig economy. This was made plain in the further announcement that the government would be cutting the fees universities can charge for classroom-based foundation year courses.
These foundation year courses are designed to prepare students for degrees with specific entry requirements, and are aimed at young people who lack the necessary qualifications to immediately access university degree courses.
University Alliance, which represents professional and technical universities, said cutting fees for foundation year courses ‘makes them financially unviable to deliver’ and that ‘disadvantaged students and the “Covid generation” will lose out if this provision is reduced or lost.’
Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: ‘This is simply an attack on the aspirations of young people and their families by a government that wants to reinforce the class ceiling, not smash it.’
Rachel Hewitt, chief executive of the Million Plus group of modern universities, rejected the entire policy of limiting student numbers according to employment and levels of pay. She said: ‘It does not capture the full range of graduate employment patterns, including in sectors such as creative industries, nor does it accommodate regional pay disparities.’
She continued: ‘Equally important, it ignores the fact that the salaries of teachers, and the many socially valuable graduate professions in the NHS and the public sector, are limited by the budgets provided by central government.’
In other words, teachers, NHS workers and all public sector employees – whose pay has been savagely slashed by 12 years of cuts and pay freezes – fall into the category of not earning enough to warrant university courses for these careers.
Far from simply ‘reinforcing’ the class ceiling, this latest attack on young people and their education is a further declaration that bankrupt British capitalism can no longer afford higher education and, in fact, can see no need for it when the only future for youth is a life of unemployment and poverty.
Last Thursday, Sunak adopted the posture of the ‘strongman’ capable of conducting an all-out class war on the unions when, oozing fake bravado, he insisted public sector workers must accept a massive pay cut and there would be no further wage negotiations.
On Monday, Sunak told young people that any aspiration to higher education is a worthless dream and they had better get used to any kind of fulfilled life being dashed by a capitalist system only interested in enriching the bosses and bankers by dumping youth and workers into the gutter of poverty.
With the Tory government at its weakest, facing humiliation at three by-elections this week, the greatest aspiration of youth and workers is to see the back of both this Tory government and a capitalist system that can offer them no future.
The working class must stand with youth and join them in forcing the TUC to call a general strike to kick out the Tories and bring in a workers’ government and socialism.
The way for young people to unite with the working class to put an end to capitalism is to join the Young Socialists and the WRP to build up the revolutionary leadership required for the victory of the British Socialist Revolution.
