The New College of Gimmicks and the Humanities fails to provide higher education with the change it dearly needs: from www.redbrickpaper.co.uk
The nineteenth century historian Jacob Burkhardt said that the Renaissance of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries comprised a ‘discovery of the world and of man’. This discovery of ‘man’ primarily meant investigating the ‘cult of the individual’, in which the human condition was academically explored through what was described as the ‘studia humanitatis’: in modern diction, the humanities. Previously, the faculties of the European universities had studied the law, medicine and, thought of as the height of intellectual study, theology. But the Renaissance revived the arts of philosophy, literature, history, rhetoric and logic, to their academic status as vital fields of study for human self-awareness.
Now, the humanities are less-favoured. The recent reforms to higher-education funding has highlighted how the arts will be worst affected as the cuts and fee-rises kick in. Science is still the driving force of our economy and industry; the government has made this quite plain. But a glimmer of hope has recently twinkled for the future of humanities. AC Grayling, a man who like Karl Marx understands the need for a philosopher to have ridiculous hair, has sprung to the rescue. With secured funding from investors and a certified academic A-list of professors, Grayling is setting up the New College of the Humanities in fashionable Bloomsbury, London. Though not a university, the private college will offer degrees in law, history, English literature, philosophy and economics.
Surely this is the answer to those worried Guardian readers up and down the country concerned with the future of the arts? Not only will there be one-to-one tutorials in the New College, students will have to take a compulsory diploma with modules in science for non-scientists, logic, critical thinking and professional skills. It’s a two-pronged attack on ignorance, educating students in a holistic approach to reason and rationality. Before you know it, this institution will be churning out a new generation of Renaissance men and women.
The worries about the future of the arts under Mr Osborne’s one-size-fits-all approach to cuts are going to be eased by Grayling and his hair. Someone with this level of concern is surely equally worried about social mobility and the potential market of arts courses which will be inevitably created. Or not. One-to-one tutorials, location in Bloomsbury and Richard Dawkins cost money, not to mention hair products. Fees at the New College will be £18,000 per year. The glimmer of hope has been shown to be merely the reflection of money in Grayling’s eyes. But is this an obvious conclusion to jump to for the stereotypical leftist student?
The Renaissance, like many events of historical significance in the early modern era, was carried by the printing press. This in turn filtered literacy across society, away from the educated elite in the Church and royal courts. While all levels of society may not have been able to study the humanities academically at that time, we now live in an age where it is possible for anyone, providing they have the drive and work ethic, to go to university. Even with the fee rises, loans will still be offered and will not have to be paid back until you are earning over £21,000. Granted the students starting in 2012 will be in debt for longer, but when weighed up with the value of a university education, this should not be viewed as a barrier to it. £18,000, however, is a barrier.
But fundamentally this is not about the future of arts, although it ought to be. Grayling is experimenting with an American-style modal to find a solution to the higher education debate. The high fees could enable the College to provide significant bursaries, and as a private institution, it will set a precedent which Oxford and Cambridge may need to follow in order to survive government intervention. The step towards private universities provides a mixed bag; it could easily create real barricades to social mobility, but simultaneously it could bring value back to the degree which has been so heavily undermined in recent years by the sheer volume of people taking them. The problem is Grayling has gone the wrong way about it. It’s hard to see how getting big names to teach at a small college in a fashionable part of London, is not all an act play down the fees. The fact is the type of people on the professoriate of the College hold prestigious chairs all over the world; how will they find time to properly teach at the New College of the Humanities? A higher education institution has to spend years developing a reputation of quality and excellence; A-list academics are not a substitute for this.
No doubt a new model for higher education is needed, but it should be experimented within the existing system, not with gimmicks.