Two decades after New Labour’s expansion of higher education, many students feel short-changed
When the famous slogan “education, education, education” was uttered by Sir Tony Blair in 1996 at the launch of Labour’s priorities for government in Blackpool, few could have foreseen the problems facing our bloated higher education sector today.
In a report published last year by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the former prime minister’s think tank acknowledged that a significant portion of Britain’s post-2008 economic growth had been on the back of the expansion of universities and colleges.
The UK has “come to rely on the expansion of education to prop up economic growth”, the foreword said. It went on to recommend that the sector be expanded further, from approximately 53pc of young people going to university today to 60pc by 2030 and 70pc by 2040.
Just a year after Sir Tony’s target of putting half of all young adults through higher education was finally reached in 2019, then education secretary Gavin Williamson announced that the “absurd mantra” would be dropped.