Every British Prime Minister leaves their mark on the higher education system.
To talk about universities and other providers is usually electorally popular – it plays into narratives about aspiration and choice, about the possibility of skilled and well paid work, about British exceptionalism (our “world class” universities), about innovation and growth, and about local pride.
Because of all this, whatever the rhetoric of the day may be – and for how long have we heard the old saw about too many students (read “non-traditional students”) studying pointless subjects (read, alternatively, “niche vocational subjects”, or “attempts to understand areas of modern culture that the speaker fervently wishes would disappear”) – the policy direction has largely been one of expansion and a sort of benign neglect: tempered with a loosely drawn austerity and a vague, occasional, sense of the need to invest.
