Talk of “rip-off” and “Mickey Mouse” degrees will continue to dominate Conservative higher education policy regardless of who becomes the party’s next leader, experts have predicted.
Despite needing to rebuild after a bruising general election defeat, none of the six leadership candidates is expected to offer a radical departure from Tory thinking on universities, which has in recent years been dominated by a focus on perceived “low-quality” courses.
Immigration issues are also likely to be high on the agenda for the party as it elects its fourth leader in five years, meaning that restrictions on international students and graduate work visas could again be urged, months after the government’s Migration Advisory Committee cautioned against such moves.
James Cleverly, the former home secretary who ultimately made the decision not to scrap the visa at the end of the last parliament, is among those standing, as is Robert Jenrick, a former immigration minister who co-authored a Centre for Policy Studies report in May that called for its immediate abolition.
Neil O’Brien, the Conservative MP for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston and the other author of that report, said he felt there were still issues that needed to be addressed.
“I think there is a specific problem with the post-study work visa,” he told Times Higher Education. “I don’t have a problem with the number of international students. If someone wants to come and do a course and leave, I’m fine with that.
“It is the offer of a work visa to sell higher education that I take issue with. We should be selling it on its own merits rather than trying to offer people routes to work-based migration.”
Winning the contest depends on securing sufficient support from fellow MPs to make it to the final round of two candidates, with the party’s membership making the final decision.
Members have historically backed the more right-wing of the candidates on offer, which could put pressure on those standing from the more moderate wing of the party – Tom Tugendhat and Mel Stride – to up the rhetoric on topics such as universities, according to Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.
“Winning the Conservative leadership does involve playing to the gallery – a gallery made up of grass-roots members, many of whom, I’m afraid, are likely to buy the idea, first, that higher education can be a waste of time and money, especially with all the ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’ that universities supposedly offer these days; and, second, that they’re a back-door route for migrants,” he said.
“I doubt whether many of the candidates believe this in their heart of hearts. However, whoever wins will likely slip into that kind of rhetoric, both before and after the contest.”
In their last general election manifesto, the Conservatives promised to change the law so that the lowest-performing courses would be prevented from recruiting students by the regulator.
Mr O’Brien said there was a “widespread view” among the public that there were lots of low-value courses and that the benefits of some degrees were “mis-sold” to their participants.
He said there was an “unresolved desire to do something” about the situation, and there was scope to meet some of the funding challenges of higher education “through prioritisation away from low-value courses”.
Ultimately, Professor Bale said, there was little the new leader could do to impact the Labour government “unless and until they can close the polling gap with them”.
“Even then, it’s difficult to imagine that government doing anything likely to kill a goose that lays so many eggs for local communities and the economy as a whole.”
