ABSTRACT
In the United Kingdom system of higher education the most obvious problems, the shortage of resources, have already been touched upon. Adult education is one of the Cinderellas of educational provision in the UK, receiving about one per cent of the total education budget. The various British educational systems do not lack middle-tier or short-cycle provision; what they do lack is a credible link between such provision and the higher system. Short-cycle courses have been developed, rather more effectively, in France, Yugoslavia, Scandinavia and elsewhere, while the Province of Quebec puts all higher education students through such a stage. In the USA, the crucial point once again is that the nearest equivalent to courses of this type are credit-earning, and thus can in their own way make higher education more widely accessible, in both the literal and the figurative sense.
