Paying for Graduates
By DAVID THOMSON
IT seems a far cry, in 1952, from the days of the Barlow and Clapham Committees which urged great increases in the " output " of graduates_ from the universities, and the " Further Education and Training " scheme which generously subsidised young men and women to provide for their further education. Everywhere there is apprehensive talk of drastic economies in education, financial stringencies in universities and economic hardship amongst students. It may well be that a great deal of this talk is premature and exaggerated. But there is substance enough in these anxieties to call for some enquiry into the facts of the situation.
Between 1945 and 1950 British universities passed through a social and financial revolution—that is, a quick and far- reaching transformation in three main respects; first, in the numbers and kinds of students entering the universities, secondly, in the acceptance by the universities of more direct obligation to serve certain social and economic purposes in our national community, and, thirdly, in the establishment of much greater financial dependence, both of universities and their students, upon the State and local authorities.
The figures of these changes show the scale of this trans- formation. In 1938-9 there were roughly 50,111 full-time students -at British universities, of whom about 40,001 were at English and Welsh universities. By 1950 there were over 85,000, of whom over 68,000 were at English and Welsh universities. These numbers increased slightly last year, but on the whole the increase has now stopped, and the student population has become stabilised at just under 70,000 in England and Wales, and roughly 86,000 for the United Kingdom.
The teaching staffs have correspondingly doubled to about 8,000. In general this stabilisation had taken place before the present stringencies and economies began;-so it would seem that the issue is no longer whether expansion should continue but whether the present size of the universities is to be maintained or a new phase of retrenchment and contraction to begin. The ratio of students of " arts " subjects to students of scientific and technological subjects, it may be noted, is roughly 2 to 3, and the " output " of graduates still falls short of the number suggested as desirable by the Barlow Committee. The shortage of science teachers in the schools is notorious.
During these years of rapid expansion our economic life has come to rely more and more on university-trained men and women, just as the universities have agreed to expansion because of a quicker sense of obligation to meet the post-war needs of the country. The demand for more engineers, doctors, scientists and technologists was official and incessant. But the arts faculties, too, became dominated more and more by social needs. Economic planning required more trained economists, statisticians, lawyers; town-planning called for more skilled architects and surveyors; the schools needed more teachers in all subjects. The structure and the work of the universities became more closely integrated with national life, and they undertook to play a larger part in it than pre-war.
As a consequence of this, public authorities provided financial aid to students and to the universities on a much more lavish scale than before, and the universities accepted, as the price of their expansion and the shouldering of larger responsi- bilities, much greater dependence on such subsidies. In 1938 just over 40 per cent. of the students were getting financial help from some public body: now 70 per cent. are so aided, and any decline in public aid would immediately result in either a drop in numbers or a lowering of standards, or most likely both. The universities themselves now receive roughly 70 per cent. of their income from either parliamentary grants or local- education authorities, and this is double the proportion it was before the war.
Universities have therefore irrevocably been transformed from bodies only partially dependent on State aid into bodies which are mainly pensioners of the State. And this, perhaps, is the most far-reaching change of all. Its incidence varies, of course, from one university to another. Last year Cambridge derived about half its income from public funds, Oxford some 58 per cent., Manchester 73 per cent. The complete control preserved by the universities and university colleges over the admission of students, the jealous regard of the University Grants Committee for preserving the independence of the universities, the autonomy of the colleges at Oxford and Cam- bridge, have so far been effective safeguards against direct interference with academic freedom. But it is natural that apprehensions should often be voiced that he who pays the piper shall ultimately call the tune; and at least the universities are now more exposed to the consequences of any sudden fluctuation in Government and local-authority financial policies.
What the universities need now, after five years of rapid expansion and congestion, is another five years of assimilation and consolidation. Their building programmes, already far behind because of scarcities of labour, materials and money, need to be completed. Their equipment in laboratories and libraries is in many places still very inadequate for the larger number of students, and needs to be built up. Their teaching- staffs, often conscious that their duties to research and learning have suffered because of the pressure of teaching and adminis- tration, need a breathing-space if they are to fulfil their work as a whole. If the universities are to perform these tasks, and so render to the community the services which it has come to expect of them, even during the phase of consolidation they will need not only continued financial support from the State but even greater financial support. To be confronted, at this moment, with an enforced contraction of either numbers or structural development would have most damaging effects, both on the universities and on the country as a whole.
The Treasury's recurrent grants to all universities in 1950 totalled just over £131 million, and non-recurrent grants just over £6 million. Out of the whole national budget is some £20 million too heavy a price to pay for the cultivation of that " working partnership " between universities and the State which Sir Walter Moberly and others have praised Are 1850 State Scholarships (the number actually awarded last summer) really too many for the Ministry to offer, when ten times that number of students were first admitted to English and Welsh universities alone last October ?
Perhaps one answer is given by the recent report on Universities and Industry, published by the Anglo-American Council of Productivity. It points out that " when allowance is made for the population factor but not for relative costs, it would appear that the United States is spending seven times as much as Great Britain on yesearch in science and engineering in the universities," and it strongly recommends that " industry in this country should recruit a larger proportion of persons educated in full-time courses, either at the universities or technical colleges," and should " afford such persons ample scope and encouragement, so that full benefit may be gained from their education." It is no time for either the State, local authorities or public opinion—in sheer material self-interest— to become grudging and parsimonious in the aid given to students or to the universities. The nation urgently needs more well-trained graduates in every sphere, and it is a gilt-edged security to pay for them.
Previous page
