First Class? Challenges and opportunities for the UK's university sector

Article

Over the past few decades, higher education in the United Kingdom has been transformed, expanding to a mass, bordering on universal, system. There are now almost 2.4 million HE students. In this position of relative strength we are left with two broad options: to accept the status quo, or to ask ourselves some difficult questions about what we really want HE to achieve, and what sacrifices we may have to make to get there.

The contributors to this collection reflect on different aspects of higher education policy and purpose, around the key questions of:

  • What are universities for?
  • Who are universities for?
  • How should the sector be organised?

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