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Management consultant. David Craig
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The Great University Con: How we broke our universities and betrayed a generation Kindle Edition

by David Craig (Author), Hugh Openshaw (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 88 ratings
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Thirty years ago, around 770,000 people - just one in six school leavers - attended a British university or polytechnic. Now there are over 2.3 million students in Higher Education - almost half of all school leavers.

But has this huge growth in 'Uni' really been the great success that politicians and universities would have us believe? After all, what's the point of having a degree if one in every two people has one and if less than one in ten students on many courses will find a graduate job?

THE GREAT UNIVERSITY CON exposes the truth behind the massive expansion of Britain's university sector - millions of graduates with useless degrees in pointless subjects from third-rate universities with little chance of finding a graduate job but with a lifetime of unrepayable debt.
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    320 pages
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    June 24, 2018
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07F13W3BY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Original Book Company (June 24, 2018)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 24, 2018
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2163 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 88 ratings

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Management consultant. David Craig

Management consultant. David Craig

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
88 global ratings

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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars The Emperor's New Clothes...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 1, 2020
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Congratulations to Craig and Openshaw for conducting an excoriating dissection (perhaps autopsy would be more appropriate?) of what everyone knows about the sclerotic university industry, but which no-one with any power or influence has been prepared to say, still less attempt to rectify. The book consists of 15 chapters all dealing with distinct features of the university sector. These could be read as standalone chapters, but I found this a fast and easy read and romped through it in no time. My admiration for the authors consists of three main points; firstly it is well researched and referenced, so one can look up any of their claims; they attempted to keep a reasonable level of journalistic objectivity through-out (largely successfully), when quite frankly a rant about the idiocy of the system was more than justified; and lastly I marvelled that they managed to write the same sorry tale about different aspects of the university system for each chapter and still hold the reader's interest. Granted the rot was initiated by a Conservative government decision, but Tony Blair's stated target of 50% in university education has never been justified and looks like an obvious strategy for social engineering; Guardian readers beware... Both an entertaining, lively read, and equally depressing at the same time; if you've thought about this subject at all rationally (rather than ideologically), you may not learn much except to have your suspicions confirmed, but at least some others can see the Emperor has no clothes....
2 people found this helpful
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R N Richardson
5.0 out of 5 stars Should be essential reading for all students, their parents and taxpayers.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 23, 2023
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Appears well written and researched. A sad insight into how our once revered higher education system has been ruined by political interference, social engineering and financial avarice.
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Michael X Smith
4.0 out of 5 stars Too big Not to Fail
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 25, 2021
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David Craig and Hugh Openshaw’s The Great University Con is a clearly written critique of the consequences of the expansion of higher education in the UK over the last several decades. The authors criticise lower standards for admission, degree content and graduation, the excess of graduates in subjects with bad job markets and the dearth of graduates for good ones, the overall poor quality of some of the newer universities, the excess pay and perks for high-level administrators, particularly university vice-chancellors, the growing student debt and its implications for graduates and taxpayers, and the failure of successive governments to address the problems. Their criticism, based on information from articles in the broadsheet press, the specialist educational press, government and think-tank reports and interviews, all clearly referenced, is cogent and powerful.
In a recent article in the Times Literary Supplement (2 Oct 2020, 4-5) “What Is a University Now?” Joe Moran, a professor of English and Cultural History at Liverpool John Moores University, writes about the effect of the corona-virus crisis on higher education in the UK:

The huge market for students from China and India, who pay the higher international fees, had collapsed overnight. The Institute for Fiscal Studies warned that thirteen British universities or colleges were at risk of going bankrupt. Several universities asked staff to take pay cuts. Others announced closures of humanities degrees. Many lecturers on short-term contracts [ . . .] were laid off. (4)

The passage reads like a fulfilment, accelerated by the viral pandemic, of Craig and Openshaw’s predictions for the British university system. Moran adds:

In July, Gavin Williamson’s Department for Education published a “restructuring regime,” outlining the conditions for universities seeking emergency loans. It amounted to a new higher education policy, including a sharp shift towards STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and vocational courses, a threat to end funding for the arts and humanities courses deemed poor value for money, and a warning that universities would not be saved from going bust. (4)

That reads like a checklist for Craig and Openshaw’s suggested cure for the British university system’s ills. Overall, the events described in Moran’s article seem to confirm the accuracy of Craig and Openshaw’s analysis of the effects of what they call “the Great Expansion,” and their recommendations for reform. Up to a point, the thoughtful reader, especially one experienced in university systems, particularly the British, at least as a student and perhaps as a faculty member, will recognise the problems and agree with some of the suggested solutions. However, such a reader will also have some reservations.
A participation rate of 50% of 18-year-olds in higher education may well be excessive but, when I went to university in the 1970s, only 4% of that age group had access to higher education. Obviously, some degree of expansion was necessary. An increase in student numbers may have admitted some who would do better in alternative career paths, but it has also allowed access for talented people previously excluded on grounds of social class and consequently low expectations. Craig and Openshaw do not sufficiently recognise that.
Also, the social and cultural value of the arts and humanities is not reducible to a financial balance sheet. Even so, the arts are a vital part of the British economy, which does not live by technology alone. Degrees in subjects like English and history develop transferable skills such as critical reading and writing, and are useful not only in supplying qualified school teachers in subjects where there is a shortage, such as English, but provide people with the skills to work as, for example, technical writers across a wide range of economic areas, and researchers and writers for TV, radio, the internet and print media. To quote from a recent article in the Guardian, “Research by the British Academy has shown that of the 10 fastest-growing sectors in the economy, eight employ more graduates from the arts, humanities and social sciences than other disciplines, with these graduates in financial services, education, social work, the media and creative industries” (Anna Fazackerley, “History Is at Risk of Becoming an ‘Elite’ Degree.” 1 May 2021, 19). Craig and Openshaw rightly identify the need for more engineers but underestimate the usefulness of the arts and humanities, a tendency they share with politicians.
While the authors accurately indicate widespread problems like the limited availability of graduate-level jobs, a term currently undergoing redefinition with many graduates taking work not requiring a degree, Craig and Openshaw understate or ignore factors beyond the university system, such as the increasing automation of much work and the massive increase in population both domestically and globally, the real “Great Expansion.” If the British economy is to provide appropriate work for British university graduates then, as well as some reform of the British university system, the effects of globalisation will have to be limited. Hiring cheaper foreign labour en masse instead of training and hiring your own citizens is not conducive to a high level of employment for the native population, especially in skilled jobs.
Overall, The Great University Con is a persuasive, even disturbing read and makes strong arguments in favour of reform. Its limits are that it is possibly too negative about the effects of university expansion, ignoring the positives, is too dismissive of the arts and humanities, especially their economic importance, and shows little recognition of the global situation. What the British university system requires probably does include a need to curb expansion, but it also needs better funding, better work conditions for students and lecturers and greater emphasis on academic excellence. Reducing expansion does not automatically ensure these improvements, which have always been required and probably always will be.
3 people found this helpful
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Luksy Ann
5.0 out of 5 stars The cat's out of the bag
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 15, 2021
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At last here is a book which makes explicit the fears and reservations I harbour about British universities, having worked until recently in the country's Higher Education sector for a few years. I was particularly taken with the observations on overseas students (to whom I taught Pre-Sessional English at a 'new' university) and recall my initial disbelief at seeing in my first full term of teaching a young Iranian man being accepted onto a degree course after his utterly lamentable performance in the Pre-Sessional Programme I taught.
It was then that the current and cravenly plutocratic ethos of our universities was brought home to me. Students, and especially high-fee-paying international students, have, in their ever-increasing numbers, become cash cows and little more. Craig and Openshaw expose this and countless other scandals, such as rampant plagiarism and duplicity (Gulf States students spring to mind), in what is a valuable and telling piece of work and one which should have overpaid university management elites feeling distinctly uncomfortable. Much to their chagrin, the cat's out of the bag and it might well start yowling all the more vociferously.
2 people found this helpful
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kasymb
5.0 out of 5 stars Shocking…yet it continues
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 13, 2022
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Another example of the ineptitude of our politicians to introduce change that brings real benefit to the country and, at the same time, makes real advances in improving social mobility.

Or, perhaps, yet another cunning plan to maintain the privileged status of the elite by presenting a mirage of the benefits of uni leading to a dead end of debt.

Quite absurd that universities are not forced to show the results of their teaching in terms of student outcomes, ie graduate “premium” salaries, so that prospective students can make an informed choice.

Things were so very different in my day.

Full financial support for fees and maintenance for the son of immigrant working class parents, who was enabled to go to Cambridge on a scholarship that led to a lifetime of well paid and enjoyable jobs…and a significantly better return to the country with the income tax paid.
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