The Guardian reported today that, following the arrival of their new Vice Chancellor*, Oxford are leading the way in campaigning directly for a US style funding system for higher education. Interestingly the article focuses on his advocacy of US style scholarships. The upshot is that a fundamentally retrogressive move can be presented as a progressive one: he is calling for the existing scholarships in the UK to be improved to match their counterparts in the US but for this to take place within the context of a move from the present UK funding system to one similar to the US. Under the latter system, Ivy League universities charge feeds of up to £31000 a year… so while his argument that increasing tuition fees must be accompanied by an increase in student support to US levels is a little better than calling for an outright and unqualified lifting of the cap on fees, it’s hardly the progressive move his language paints it as being.

He says that “The commitment that we must make to [the brightest students] is that they will attend Oxford irrespective of their economic circumstances”. So, much as in American debates of the last two decades, the disingenuous concept of capitalist meritocracy (the ethical goal of social institutions should be to allow natural hierarchies to emerge) acts as a banner under which to undermine the postwar liberal settlement. Of course this ‘debate’ takes place within a political climate where, as a consequence of the media echo-chamber, it’s become accepted that Britain has a “debt crisis”: so the non-political necessity of austerity is seen to underscore the need for yet more privatization of the costs of higher education, as well for universities to seek more diversified funding sources i.e. relying on wealthy individuals and corporate partnerships rather than government.

*Formerly the Provost of Yale no less! Thank god for another socially beneficial American export.