FACTUAL
The Many
Thursday 31 August 2006 9:00-9:30 (Radio 4 FM)
Repeated: Thursday 31 August 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. Today the government's stated aim is to get half of all young people into higher education.
By the late 1950s, thousands of 18-year-olds were battering at the doors of Britain's handful of universities. But Oxbridge and Redbrick alike considered themselves full up. Martha looks at the unique moment when the state blessed the birth of a swathe of new universities - a period when visions of expansion stirred battles that are still with us today.
