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A group of well-known academics are setting up a private college in London which will charge students £18,000 a year in tuition fees. There will, as usual, be scholarships for the deserving poor. As a kind of Oxbridge by the Thames, the New College of the Humanities will offer students weekly one-on-one tutorials. For that kind of money, I would demand a team of live-in, round-the-clock tutors, ready to fill me in about Renaissance art or logical positivism at the snap of a finger. I would also expect them to iron my socks and polish my boots.
There will, however, be teaching from 14 "star" professors as well, including Linda Colley, Christopher Ricks, Richard Dawkins, Niall Ferguson and David Cannadine. Somehow it's hard to imagine these guys rolling in at 9am and teaching for 12 to 15 hours a week, which is what you do in the real Oxbridge. Prospective students should talk to these professors' travel agents and insist on obtaining photocopies of their diaries. Students can, however, be fairly relaxed about the prospect of being kicked out. It would be like JK Rowling being kicked out by her publishers.
The master of the college will be public sage and identikit Islington Man, AC Grayling. Many observers, he comments, will be surprised to see a group of "almost pinko" academics pitching in to the project. If Dawkins, Colley, Ricks and Ferguson are pinko, I'm a deep shade of indigo. Anyway, why should anyone be surprised at the prospect of academics signing on for a cushy job at 25% more than the average university salary, with shares in the enterprise to boot?
What would prevent most of us from doing so is the nausea which wells to the throat at the thought of this disgustingly elitist outfit. British universities, plundered of resources by the bankers and financiers they educated, are not best served by a bunch of prima donnas jumping ship and creaming off the bright and loaded. It is as though a group of medics in a hard-pressed public hospital were to down scalpels and slink off to start a lucrative private clinic. Grayling and his friends are taking advantage of a crumbling university system to rake off money from the rich. As such, they are betraying all those academics who have been fighting the cuts for the sake of their students.
If a system of US-type private liberal arts colleges like this one gains ground in Britain, the result will be to relegate an already impoverished state university system to second-class status. So far, British society has held the view that the education of doctors, teachers, social workers and so on is too momentous a matter to be left to the vagaries of the profit motive. This is why though there are already one or two private universities in the country, nobody has a clue where they are. This new college, however, could be the thin end of an ugly wedge. Why should Grayling, Dawkins and their chums care about that, though, when they will be drawing down mega-salaries for what is reported to be an extremely modest amount of lecturing?
In the US, getting yourself a decent education depends in part on the whims of the well-heeled. It is they who decide whether to obtain their tax breaks by donating a new theatre or lab to your college, or whether to find some more devious way of avoiding the inland revenue. This new venture in Bloomsbury is said to be backed by multimillion pound funding from private investors. While the Graylings and Colleys spout on in the classrooms about humane values, they are in the pay of those who would not recognise such things if they were to move into their living rooms.
This piece of the so-called private sector will actually be parasitic on the public one, rather like surgeons who use public facilities for private operations. The college's degrees will be awarded by the University of London, which ought to know better than to collude in an enterprise which could result in seeing its professors poached by those with the biggest bank balances. London Uni will share its libraries and other facilities too, thus ensuring that its own students are forced to share resources with those who have bought their way in.
Grayling and his colleagues, good liberals all except for the flag-waving Ferguson, are naturally committed to the ideal of following the argument wherever it leads. The only problem is that under these circumstances it leads straight to the bank. If education is to be treated as a commodity, then we should stop pussyfooting around. I already ask my students at the start of a session whether they can afford my £50 insights into Wuthering Heights, or whether they will settle for a few mediocre ideas at £10 a piece.
The new college, staffed as it is by such notable liberals, will of course be open to all viewpoints. Well, sort of. One takes it there will not be a theology department. It is reasonable to suppose that Tariq Ali will not be appointed professor of politics. The teaching of history, if the work of Dawkins and Grayling is anything to judge by, will be of a distinctly Whiggish kind. Grayling peddles a Just So version of English history, breathtaking in its crudity and complacency, in which freedom has been on the rise for centuries and has only recently run into trouble. Dawkins touts a simple-minded, off-the-peg version of Enlightenment in which people in the west have all been getting nicer and nicer, and would have ended up as civilised as an Oxford high table were it not for a nasty bunch of religious fundamentalists. Who would pay £18,000 a year to listen to this outdated Victorian rationalism when they could buy themselves a second-hand copy of John Stuart Mill?
To mention Mill in the same breath as Grayling, however, is to do a great liberal a grave disservice. Mill refused to allow his passion for freedom to blind him to gross inequality. By contrast Grayling is the kind of liberal who is prepared to let equality go hang. Freedom from state intervention for him means freedom to charge students sky high fees. If this catches on, the current crisis in universities will escalate into educational apartheid of the kind that we already have at secondary school level. There will be a number of private unis where students are assigned fags and expect to stroll into the Foreign Office with a third-class degree, and a lot of other places which cannot afford to paint the walls. Just when the real Oxford and Cambridge have been dragging themselves inch by inch into the modern democratic world, an ultra-Oxbridge is being proposed which will probably have an even lower intake of working class students than Cambridge did when I was there in the 1960s. Grayling's scheme is odious.
Comments
6 June 2011 5:09PM
This is utterly contemptible and indefensible and is motivated purely by selfishness, greed, and profit.
6 June 2011 5:10PM
Thank you for being so angry and articulate where I just feel depressed.
6 June 2011 5:11PM
I really don't have a problem with this. If people want to pay other people to teach them, that's their business, no-one else's. If the university is willing to share some of its resources with certain state universities, then why shouldn't the reverse also apply? This is extra, very high-level education and it is costing the taxpayer almost zilch. Go for it.
6 June 2011 5:12PM
Hopefully this will prompt some to ask what the 'new atheists' they've idolised actually stand for.
6 June 2011 5:12PM
So, they don't teach 40 hours per week, like proper teachers?
I'm sceptical, Terry. I remember my University teachers. The ones who used to complain because they were only making £40,000 per year.
I think it's the logical outcome of the government's proposal: gift massive privileges to the already privileged. Maybe the odd token lower-middle class individual can be brought along for the ride.
It'll be the Eton of universities: £18,000 per year tuition fees to hear Dawkins and Grayling whine about 'sky fairies'; and Niall Ferguson whinge about 'the left'.
6 June 2011 5:13PM
This uni is the academic equivalent in footballing terms of the New York Cosmos.
Big names who are probably past it cashing in on their track record.
Grayling who is a kind of default interviewee for the BBC on ethical issues should be shunned and put out to graze.
6 June 2011 5:14PM
I assume you find Peter Vardy's Faith Academies equally odious? Or is it just the emphasis on atheism that rankles with you?
6 June 2011 5:15PM
Didn't they offer you a job then Terry?
Reading this tells you far about the mindset of the author than anything else.
6 June 2011 5:15PM
For 18K pa, they'll also lick your boots.
6 June 2011 5:17PM
I rarely agree with most of what Terry Eagleton writes so I am glad to be able to say that this is an exception. I agree with every point that he makes.
It seems to me to be shocking that people like Grayling and Dawkins, who make (rightly in my view) such a fuss about hiving off a section of our children into religious schools on the basis of their parents beliefs in the hereafter, are nevertheless comfortable with the idea, of later, on hiving of a section off them into elite universities on the basis of the size of their parents wallets.
I hope that the project fails but suspect that it will not.
6 June 2011 5:17PM
The high-profile academics that lecture at this university are simply cashing in on previous investments in their human capital when they researched and were somewhere near the fore-from of their respective fields. So they have put a lot of effort into creating their reputations. The students should be aware, however, that most of them are probgably in semi-retirement, at least in the research they conduct, but not in their media exposure. Better to be lectured by a younger person that is putting in the effort to get to the top of their field.
6 June 2011 5:18PM
Because they're worth it.
In their own humengous minds at least.
An hour spent talking to a rich-kid undergraduate is an hour not spent on the latest best-seller, and is a distraction for the enormous cerebral muscle.
I'd say that on a real-cost basis £18,000 is a bargain.
Why not get VS Naipul to give the creative writing classes?
He can tell all the students that, although they may be rich, they are compared to him nothing more than sh1te.
6 June 2011 5:18PM
@ quethiock
Fuckin A.
6 June 2011 5:18PM
All speculation served with bitter sauce.
6 June 2011 5:19PM
'New College of Humanities' for some, and 'debtucation' for the others?
6 June 2011 5:19PM
I have zero problem with this, in fact it should have been done years ago. The UK only has a few world class universities and too many people to attend them, combine this with Labours cynical grade inflation means too many worthy candidates are rejected.
Too many clever, capable, worthy British students have been going to the USA to study at The Ivy League at great cost to themselves and great financial loss to the UK.
As a bonus if this pisses off the left wing dinosaurs who are so dogmatic that anything private sends them apoplectic, then great.
6 June 2011 5:19PM
.....Assuming it's legal, then it's none of your business how folk earn their money or spend their money.
What a pain of a busybody thou art!
6 June 2011 5:19PM
Many academics will have experience using google to find whether text in their students' work is original or copied from elsewhere. A quick check of NCHum's History course reveals that the syllabus is very similar to the online course provided by UoL. So will those who pay through the nose just be getting the same material parroted by a "big name" then?
6 June 2011 5:19PM
Thank you Terry Eagleton for passionately saying what I was struggling to find the words for in another thread. Badly put or not, I'm going to repeat my opinion on the matter...
I wish I could feel something like schadenfreude for the flack that Dawkins and co will have rightly flung at them for selling out in this way, but I'm so saddened at yet another wound to Britain's equality and meritocracy that I just feel deflated.
What kind of men are they that so easily dismiss and even further the vast inequalities between rich and poor? Education can be one of the most effective ways of distributing the wealth and power of a nation and yet in a country where the very poor and less well off are seriously struggling and being fucked over by the politicians, bankers and heartless wealthy elite, along come a bunch of celebrity academics (who purport to rationality and enlightened thinking) and set up an elite university that only the rich can afford. Clearly so called 'rational thinking' does not inspire ethical behaviour. What a disgusting sell out. It is enough to make a grown woman weep.
Thank God for institutions like the Open University who fees are affordable and open to all...even those who are penniless.
6 June 2011 5:20PM
Lack of belief in deities has nothing to do with whether you think private universities are a good idea. I generally agree with Dawkins on religion, but I think this enterprise is an appalling and sickening idea.
Atheists tend to be fairly lefty, but there is definitely a minority that swings more libertarian. Lumping all 'new atheists' under the same political umbrella is as silly as asserting that all Christians buy into the prosperity gospel.
It turns out that some beliefs are not dependent on other beliefs. Shocking, I know.
6 June 2011 5:20PM
Any other academic scores you want to settle while you're here Terry?
This is Britain's third private university, after Buckingham and BPP. There are also a number of private sector colleges accredited by various universities to issue degrees e.g. SAE Institute.
These places exist because graduate employers are fed up of graduates who can't read, write or add up. If the public sector can't provide a suitable service - and the evidence is that successive governments have proved themselves to be completely and utterly incompetent in the sector - then something else will be created instead.
By doing a 36-week, for term year, Buckingham students get a degree in two years rather than three, and therefore start earning a year earlier, and pay fees and accommodation costs which are very comparable with other universities over the length of the course. 100% of their 2009 cohort ended up in jobs or in further education. This is competition.
You can sit on the beach commanding the tide to go out. Or you can examine how and why higher education in Britain is not fit for purpose. I suggest you start with removing the title "university" from all the jumped up further education colleges doling out Mickey Mouse degrees to any functional illiterate who walks through the door.
6 June 2011 5:20PM
I guess you just can't know people from their published works.
I had a lot of time for Dawkins, I really liked his book and he was exactly right about God, as far as I was concerned. But now it seems there's an ugly side.
As someone said on a related thread, they have correctly identified there is a problem, and then taken action which will make it much worse.
6 June 2011 5:21PM
( Psssst.... I don't think Terry has been invited to lecture there).
6 June 2011 5:21PM
This is the case. But then, the celebrity professor is normally not the original thinker. They're just the academics with an agent and a line that can be sold most easily as original.
6 June 2011 5:21PM
voyageof theargo, yes, agreed, it tells you that he is right.
6 June 2011 5:21PM
"Somehow it's hard to imagine these guys rolling in at 9am and teaching for 12 to 15 hours a week, which is what you do in the real Oxbridge."
So at most 3 hours teaching a day? Oooh - onerous. I don't expect this WILL be a problem for the stars they have lined up. One of them, Dawkins, is already at Oxrbidge anyway.
Unlike Eagleton.
I find this all quite funny - its the inevitable consequence of people like Eagleton opposing unlimited fees.
The only way to square the circle without fees is to dramatically reduce the number of people who go to university - back down to the levels when Eagleton was an undergrad.
And the US system with public, state universities and private liberal arts colleges works pretty well. The state universities support the local economy and widen access far more than well regarded British universities and the private colleges provide a rareified experience for those who want to pay - no point using taxpayer money to provide rareified experience (quad porn). I expect and hope Durham University and St. Andrews embrace their future as fully private fun palaces for the rich allowing public money to be funnelled elsewhere.
6 June 2011 5:22PM
Don't care if you buy my books. The copyright has run out so I get diddly-swat. I only wrote them for the money.
6 June 2011 5:22PM
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6 June 2011 5:22PM
Oh, and Tariq Ali is a jester with lunatic views. That is why he won't be given a professorship here.
Let's not beat around the bush.
6 June 2011 5:23PM
Like nuisverige, I really do not see the problem with this. If the wealthy want to pay very large sums of money to be taught by people who want to be paid generously for doing the teaching, it's really nobody's business but their own.
Britain's State universities have been going down the pan for quite some time - long before the coalition formed government and nothing to do with any private universities. Inefficiency, crippling bureaucracy, preposterous widening access imperatives, and students whose dismal school experience has failed utterly to prepare them for university. Glad I'm getting out of the whole hideous mess.
6 June 2011 5:23PM
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6 June 2011 5:23PM
When I first heard about it, I thought this was a prank. Honestly. A joke aimed to show how ridiculous the coalition had been on fees. Which would have been really ingenious, if you think about it.
Well, I was wrong. Gobsmacked.
6 June 2011 5:24PM
So Waltz, you have no issue with the self-perpetuating elite this will engender?
6 June 2011 5:25PM
peterthompson49
"voyageof theargo, yes, agreed, it tells you that he is right."
Come off it. The status quo doesn't work. You can stick your head in the sand as many do with the NHS but if we want a world class university sector we need to reform what it does and how we pay for it before its too late.
This is part of the solution.
6 June 2011 5:27PM
Well, I'm finding it difficult to be completely outraged,much a I sympathise with the sentiments.
I'm far more outraged at private public schools ruling the roost, dominating public service and government t the top, though not at the bottom, of the career ladder.
Concentrate on that !
As for posh expensive institutions: Somewhere I'd be more worked up about is Regent's College: The most fabulous campus, in Regent's Park just up from Baker Street tube station.
An ex University of London campus (Bedford college) now filled with American-proviledged-year-in-Europe business and management, and media type courses.
At least New College found it's own dump in Bloomsbury, and is affiliated with University of London.
Anyway - Maybe they're not as white a shade of pinko as Terry says, and grayling and his mates will raise the red flag and nationalise the lot in a few months.
An Ealing comedy in the making - there's a script in there somewhere I'm sure of it.
6 June 2011 5:28PM
Are the very rich students going to study Faust and selling one's soul to the devil. Or will this be too sensitive for both students and "lecturers".
6 June 2011 5:28PM
It is odious.
One would be foolish to pay such a high fee when one can go anywhere else and get a fine, broad educational experience. These twits are going on name recognition alone and thinking they are worth far more than they are, an education that is not.
Students, study abroad, you will do yourself a great favor for life. Stay in the UK and take your chances or go for it in a country that will teach you skills, culture and give you an education for the future. I know what I would choose.
6 June 2011 5:28PM
It's utterly disgusting.... unless they give me a job.
6 June 2011 5:28PM
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6 June 2011 5:28PM
Incidentally, there's been a long discussion over at Richard Dawkins' site, where you can read what both Dawkins and Grayling think in their own words.
6 June 2011 5:28PM
An excellent article, free of the obscenities that I would have peppered it with. This is just another last pay day for a bunch of mostly superannuated hacks. Grayling in particular should hang his head in shame. Nobody with any credibility will touch graduates of this dubious enterprise with a 10 foot pole.
6 June 2011 5:28PM
This is a great step forward for freedom against state control of higher education.
With the benefit of the spirit of free enterprise behind it, it will become the top Uni within the next ten years.
Well done A C Grayling and the others.
6 June 2011 5:28PM
Can any thicko with £18,000 to spare go?
6 June 2011 5:29PM
I fail to see how this engenders the perpetuation of some "elite" any more than Eton or Harrow, and nobody is calling for them to be abolished. Well, no serious commentator, anyway.
6 June 2011 5:31PM
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6 June 2011 5:32PM
Convenient of you to omit the fact that Grayling and Dawkins have retired from Oxbridge
6 June 2011 5:32PM
Dworkin might not believe in God, but I bet he believes in Santa Claus...
6 June 2011 5:32PM
I wonder if way back when Jesus College (Oxford) was just a gleam in the imagination of the founders if so many whined and complained about the idea too.
Physicist & Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss is on the faculty, that man's lectures are sensational.
Is the problem that science seeks to inspire through facts and truth while the religious don't ever want their constituents to break free from wallowing in irrationality?
p.s. I love to sleep over at Jesus.
6 June 2011 5:33PM
I've written a book on the connection between happiness and the number of friends one has on Facebook. If I pay the tuition, will they teach me how to promote it?
6 June 2011 5:33PM
I am very dissapointed with this project, especially after Prof. Dawkin's recent attempts to highlight the dangers of inequality and segregation in education.
Elitist moneygrubbing.
(And this from a fan of Grayling, Dawkins et al)