Stop universities conning students

The universities are shroudwaving claiming that the coming cuts will destroy higher education. But remember, many so-called ‘universities’ are just polytechnics in disguise. To move from poly to uni status, they just extended one- and two-year diploma courses into three-year degree courses – often without changing the content at all. My contacts in the press tell me that they learnt as much in a 40-week diploma course in journalism as today’s students learn in three years on a degree course.

Polytechnics, pretending to be universities, have been conning students for years. It’s time to cut their budgets, cut the length of their courses and make them provide better value for their students.