left to my own devices – occasional thoughts on higher education

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Although some friends delight in telling me I’m now old, I’ve probably always been at least a little old before my time.  After all, how many people in their teens in the eighties were aware of AJP Taylor, the Oxford historian who made a name for himself from the 1950s through to the 1970s as one of the first Telly Dons, striding into shot to deliver lectures ranging across nineteenth and twentieth century history.

the professional controversialist

What has this any of this got to do with higher education in the 2020s?

In addition to his many other talents and achievements, Taylor had an eye for controversy and could turn a phrase.  And the current debate around the Graduate Route visa and the potential government response reminded me of one of his literary thrusts.

For Taylor, the Tory Party was ‘the stupid party’.

Of course this was characteristic attention seeking by Taylor, amplified by his assertion that ‘in the world of ideas the Tories had to make do with unprincipled adventurers … or borrow from the other side’.

As well as being a professional historian, Taylor was a professional controversialist (he once described himself as ‘a man of strong views, weakly held’). Many of his epigrams were intended more to provoke than enlighten, and the ones quoted above perhaps fall into this category.

And the modern Tory party has been, for good or ill depending on perspective, anything but short of ideas.  From Sir Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher through to current parliamentarians advertising their political faith, modern Tories are keen to emphasise the deep intellectual and ideological roots of their politics and policies.

But the apparent pressures within the Tory party to ‘act on student visas’ seems almost to be driven by a desire to substantiate Taylor’s historic insult.

if you can’t say something nice …

Stupid is a harsh word.

And I suspect that by suggesting that what’s happening in the Tory party now over student visas is ‘stupid’ I’m probably conforming to stereotype.  Graduate.  Works in higher education.  Signed up to the argument that international students are a net economic benefit to the UK.

But despite all of that, I do think I get the Tory perspective – the political argument over international students is about much more than the economy, as articulated in a post on WonkHE last week.  That post helpfully summarised a take on the Tory argument for restricting student visas:

as a country, we have unprecedented high flows of migrant numbers. This is both a problem for the country economically, in that it provides greater pressure on services, and “dilutes capital stock” … especially when according to their data many migrants do not make a net positive contribution; and is a social issue, in that there is no social contract between state and citizens for such high flows of people to come in, and that such flows do change the nature of towns and communities.

In short, the question of student visas raises cultural, social and political issues; not just economic ones.

From what I can tell the data on the overall net economic contribution of international students doesn’t bear out the economic element of the brand of analysis that we’ve seen in the recent reports on student visas from the Tory-learning think tanks Onward and the Centre for Policy Studies.  Nevertheless choices about the student visa system can prioritise cultural, social and political issues over the economic benefit.  We could choose to address those first three issues, even if it leaves us worse of economically.

I don’t agree with it. But it’s a coherent argument.

where that leaves things

But I still don’t think that gets away from a decision to further constrain the student visa system being a stupid decision. Why? The unwillingness of those arguing for restrictions to student visas to engage properly and honestly with the consequences of such a decision.

As I said there are reasons for tightening student visa requirements, and we can choose to take a financial hit as a consequence.  But what about the other consequences?

When universities close/merge/shut courses as more and more institutions face financial deep waters, what will the people who would otherwise have studied at them do?

Undertake an apprenticeship. Where is the evidence that UK employers are willing to pay for this scale of additional new posts to pick up this slack?

Move into the further education sector. Do we really think that a sector that, thanks to government policy decisions, is even more financially challenged than higher education is in a place to provide those places at the speed at which they would be needed?

If we can’t answer questions such as these, the impact on the lives of those who would have studied at university will be deep and profound. And cumulatively the impact on wider society will be significant.

And there are other consequences.  The ripple effects on local and regional economies of local anchor institutions such as universities closing or contracting significantly.  The impact on the UK’s soft power of appearing to pull up the drawbridge for the entry of international students.  The undermining of our ambitions to be a science super power by a significant contraction of the university sector.

This is where the stupidity lies. In taking a decision without properly considering the consequences of that decision; the scale of these consequences ; whether they can be mitigated; and if so, how. In simply charging ahead with a lack of thought about implementation that sadly typifies much government policy in recent years, in education and many other sectors.

Yes, we can choose to reduce the number of international students to whom we grant visas.  But the consequences of this go far beyond those that are being acknowledged by the advocates of such a step.  And whether the failure to understand and address these consequences is deliberate or accidental, it still amounts to a stupid choice.

Of course there are some in government, in the Tory party, fighting a rearguard action on this, and we can only hope they are successful.  Unfortunately there are far too many on the other side of this argument, urging that we give stupidity a chance and pull up the drawbridge on international students.