This week’s BBC documentary Is university really worth it? explored issues such as expensive fees and loans, UCU industrial action, grade inflation, and student poverty.
Presented by comedian and former schoolteacher Geoff Norcott, the programme was positioned somewhat toward the entertainment end of the documentary spectrum – but much of the content was recognisable, important and relevant.
I was less impressed, however, by the conclusions the programme arrived at. While many would agree with Norcott’s judgement that universities have become “way too much of a business”, it was much less clear that he had successfully demonstrated that university is “evidently not working” for students, and that “the value has gone down.” What does he mean by “not working”? What does he mean by “value”?
Although rightly drawing attention to students’ concerns and distress with the expense of their fees, accommodation and loans, the narrative never deviated from the right-wing script that university is necessary for access to elite professions such as medicine or law, but beyond this has little or even zero value. Everything was funnelled through a narrow and “common sense” calculus of cost-benefit analysis. This calculus can be extended to such issues as the economic benefits that universities bring to UK towns and cities, but it excludes all notions of higher learning as a socio-cultural good, a form of personal development, or an end in itself.
