ABSTRACT
In contrast to the anti-expansionist criticism of the Black Papers, writers like Moberly, the Robbins Report, or the University Grants Committee's (UGC's) report on halls of residence were not concerned with the exclusion of the 'new students' but with the question how these students could be integrated into the university. The debate about the 'new student', whether in terms of class or youth culture, thus points towards an internal as well as external crisis of the university. The problematisation of the 'new students' and the various calls for their exclusion or enculturation were efforts to defend a normative university culture and to reproduce the authority and power of the university and the academic. Hence, what the problem of the 'new student' exposes is how central the concept of the student is to the power structures of higher education and the legitimacy of authority.
