@ChrisMayLA6 Devious use of 'an' in here, they were not educating 'an' elite they were educating 'the' elite (alongside a couple of grammar school lottery winners).

Maybe it's time to revisit the missing part of Lord Browne's tuition fee plan (where fees are 'unlimited' but the figure over the state funded threshold is footed by the institution and they join the queue, behind the state, for repayment).

Let's see some money put where mouths are.

that's not quite how it happened, but you are right in the sense that the educational policy move to make more universities by obverting previous polytechnics was ill-thought out;

that said the ex-polytechnics ('pst-92s') actually do mostly a better job in terms of 'economic value added' in that they take people with weaker school result & get them through a degree, while the best university take excellent student & get them a degree (much easier); I say this as supporter of humanist education.

@ChrisMayLA6 It's just power and influence. Lots of good places will be lost. The usual suspects will go from strength to strength. ☹️

@ChrisMayLA6

I assume with this type of thinking we can KCL be added to that list of 'weaker' universities.

@ChrisMayLA6
I have no opinion about which universities to close. But it's trivially true that the worldwide labour market only demands a certain number of uni graduates per year, and very different numbers from different subjects.

If the UK has been opening new universities mainly to keep the kids off the streets, improve unemployment figures and create jobs in rural areas, then of course it must have led to a graduate glut on the labour market.

#highered