Introduction

Quite suddenly, and not a little surprisingly, universities have become the focus of enormous attention in the UK. This has been brought about by the extraordinarily rapid and radical transformation in the size, structure, finance and organisation of higher education. Until recently, UK universities were the preserve of a small and highly selective minority, apparently removed from the exigencies of everyday life and engaging but little interest in a wider population from which they appeared distant and remote. Over the last two decades, however, fuelled by concerns about skills shortages in the increasingly competitive knowledge economy, and belatedly aping the rest of the developed world, successive governments have sought to increase the numbers of young people staying on into tertiary education while gearing it more explicitly to the demands of the economy.1 At the same time, levels of funding have been proportionately reduced, making the question of how expansion is to be paid for a major political issue. The results of this concerted effort to create a system of mass higher education have been dramatic. Student numbers have expanded prodigiously, and are set to rise still further. With the elevation of the former polytechnics, the total number of universities virtually doubled overnight, and more have since been recognised. The state seems to exert ever-closer control over the direction and activities of the universities. Inevitably, serious questions and concern have been raised about the nature of the university, its ethos and function, about academic standards, and about the role of the state.