The affluent can have their souls enriched at university, so why not the poor as well? | Kenan Malik

When the only tool you have is money, everything looks like a wage slave.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

For many policymakers (and not just in this government), the worth of a degree is measured primarily by metrics such as the proportion of students who fail to complete their course and the number who land high-skilled, well-paid jobs.

Ironically, though, the highest dropout rates at universities are in computer sciences, business and administrative studies, and engineering and technology.

Apprentices “are often treated as ‘workers rather than learners’”, forced into “low-skill, low-level positions while being paid far less than the national minimum wage”.

Instead, politicians choose to whip up a moral panic about poor-quality university courses while largely ignoring the lack of quality in many apprenticeships.

A “cynical interpretation” of the results, Moss concluded, is that universities “seeking to secure the highest recognition for teaching excellence should focus on recruiting as few students from disadvantaged backgrounds as possible”.

The notion of learning as being a good in itself, as a means of elevating the quality of our lives, is now derided as hopelessly naive, or at least as something that should be the preserve of elite students.

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