FACTUAL
The Old and the New
Thursday 14 September 2006 9:00-9:30 (Radio 4 FM)
Repeated: Thursday 14 September 2006 21:30-22:00 (Radio 4 FM)
Martha Kearney continues the series telling the story of how student life and our universities have been transformed by six decades of expansion. Sixty years ago, university was very much a minority pursuit, but today the government's stated aim is to get half of all young people into higher education.
In 1992, more or less overnight, the number of universities in Britain doubled. But it wasn't due to a massive building programme, or the injection of millions of pounds to construct new campuses. Instead, the nation's polytechnics simply changed the nameplates on their door. They were now the 'new universities'. So was this just a harmless exercise in 'rebranding' or it did it symbolise something else - the triumph of mass higher education - on the cheap?
