Meritocracy is in retreat in 21st-century higher education

Peter Scott

Once the thing that mattered most was to get a good degree: a first-class or 2:1. Now it is more important to have been to a good university, usually defined as one of the Russell Group elite universities, although there are several non-Russell institutions just as good or better.

One supposed reason for this revealing shift is that with so many universities and so many subjects, it is more and more difficult to accept that a first is a first, whichever university awarded it.

External examiners from other universities may still crisscross the country attending examination boards and reviewing student scripts, and signing declarations that the criteria for deciding degree classifications meet the standards that apply in other universities. But they are believed less and less.

The pecking order in higher education is now so strong it subverts universities’ good work. In the eyes of too many people, a degree from Cambridge, self evidently, must be better than a degree from a university lower down that pecking order – especially when the gulf between entry standards for students is taken into account: three or more A*s for Cambridge compared with a minimum of two A-level passes (if that) for much lower ranked institutions.

The variety of subjects is an even bigger problem. In the past, universities awarded degrees only in conventional academic subjects, such as history or physics, plus traditional professional subjects, such as law and medicine. Now they award degrees in almost everything, from fashion design to leisure management (even if these just happen to be in areas vital to the UK’s economy).

It doesn’t seem worth fighting back, by pointing to the thousands of people-hours devoted to ensuring that degree standards are broadly comparable throughout higher education (something the Americans don’t even pretend to check) or by arguing that ensuring comparable standards across the traditional arts and sciences has always been just as difficult as it is with newfangled vocational subjects.

Another supposed reason for the emphasis on where you get your degree, rather than how well you did, is that traditional degree classifications are no longer fit for purpose. More exact measurements are needed. The favourites are American-style grade point averages (GPAs), the average mark for almost every piece of work students have done, or “transcripts”, which claim to describe what students have achieved. The argument is that this is fairer to students and easier for employers. But it does not get over the problem that lots of people will still believe that GPAs and/or transcripts from Cambridge must be better than those from Coketown University, just like firsts, 2:1s and 2:2s.

The precision of GPAs and the detail in transcripts also suggest they are somehow more objective than degree classifications, when in fact they are just an aggregation of the same —subjective judgments. But in an age in thrall to metrics and analytics, which takes nothing on trust, these alternatives seem to have a compelling logic.

But the real reason for the shift from “good degrees” to “good universities” is that meritocracy is in retreat in 21st-century Britain (well, England – the Scots and Welsh deserve credit for resisting higher student fees). Bright students from poor homes, who so enriched our universities and our society, were always a small minority. Even in today’s wider-access university system, poorer students are massively disadvantaged.

But the principle that entry to universities should be open to all those with the ability and motivation to benefit, enshrined in the famous postwar Robbins report, has never been challenged – until now.

As one of the totems of liberal Britain, this principle is not openly challenged. However, the increasing weight placed on attending “good universities”, which just happen to be those with the most privileged student intakes, shows what is really happening. Social connections now trump academic aspirations and achievements.

Why should we be surprised? It is happening everywhere. Unpaid internships, by definition only open to the rich, now serve as gateways into the most prestigious and best-paid jobs. Only young people bankrolled by rich parents can aspire to be homeowners across wide reaches of Britain. Only in the health service is true equality of access maintained – and it is fraying.

But none of this excuses what is happening in higher education. Precisely because universities are such pivotal institutions in a meritocracy, they have a special responsibility to maintain equality of opportunity. So theirs is a special betrayal./Guardian