Art for Art’s Sake

“Should the better universities be accessible to the poorer members of society?”

That was a question posed on BBC Breakfast this morning.  The question was framed around the story that the Oxbridge Universities have indicated they will charge the maximum £9,000 a year in tuition fees.  The story itself is certainly no shock.  That the BBC editorial team deemed that an acceptable question to kick off the debate, however, I found absolutely repugnant.

This, it seems, is what we have come to as a society.  It is acceptable now to question the need for the poorer members of society to access the elite academic institutions this country has to offer.  Not just to question the level of financial resources required for anyone to attend an Oxford, a Cambridge or any red brick University for that matter, but to question the need at all for those facing greatest hardship.  You may say that the question was intended to be purely about finance, but that is not how it is posed and it is the current political climate which allows it to pass.  That question, phrased as it was, would never have passed editorial scrutiny before the last election.

The government’s rebuttal on this issue is the one they tend to wheel out whenever found to be on the defensive over their ideological attack on the state.  Namely, one of fairness.  Universities are expensive, it’s only fair that those who benefit from it should pay their way.  You don’t have to pay anything until you’re earning a decent salary and graduates statistically earn greater remuneration, it’s therefore fair.  It’s a rationale which effectively pulls at the heartstrings of tax payers up and down the country but fundamentally misses the point of what education is all about.  Where is the value seen here in education for purely academic reasons?  The kind of thirst for knowledge which sees one wish to gain an education for motivations beyond financial profit.  Where do our artists, our philosophers our experts in a myriad of subjects outside the city fit into this government’s plans?  Unless they can front up the cash it would seem they don’t figure much at all.  If there is to be any elitism within education it should be purely academic.  If you demonstrate the ability and willingness to learn, you’re through the door.  Anything further is a barrier to social mobility and personal enlightenment.  Two basic tenets of any liberal society.

This is a commerce motivated government obsessed with the bottom line.  A cabinet of millionaires which seeks to placate billionaires.  It views the educational system only in terms of the cash its pupils can generate down the line.  It sees no worth in the library system; another vital source of education and inspiration for the under privileged.  It seeks to sell off our cultural richness and diversity to the highest bidder.  These attitudes are becoming pervasive, as evidenced in the media, and it must be fought against.