Politicians should leave universities alone
Leftie ministers wanted quotas to boost diversity. Now those from the centre right want quotas to ensure bright kids from poor backgrounds get a certain percentage of university places.
Politicians .... Is there nothing they can’t run better than folk outside of Westminster?
Surely, if universities were left to their own devices, they would have an even greater self-interest than politicians in wanting to see the most able students, from the widest range of backgrounds, study for degrees? University vice chancellors, even more so than ministers, have good reason to want to see bright young people, who’d otherwise be barred by high fees, admitted to university.
Does it really need ministers to get involved? Imagine if ministers started to decree how often your local Tesco stayed open for, or when you could access LastMinute.com? So why trust them to run the seats of learning on which our future wealth as a nation depends?
If you think about it for two second, Whitehall setting university admissions quotas isn’t really very Big Society, is it?