Universities are damned if they do and damned if they don’t

I never thought I’d find myself feeling sorry for universities. For many years of headship, I was actively involved in helping students into higher education: and, as often as not, was driven to screaming point. That’s just the nature of being part of the assembly line that seeks to send many 18-year-olds on to the courses and institutions that suit their personalities, talents and aspirations: like it or not, that’s a major (but far from the only) part of secondary schools’ work.So, over the years, I may have cursed universities at times: but, now that they’re on the receiving end of criticism from all quarters, they have my sympathy. They’ve been slated for the surprisingly large number of unconditional offers made to students: at the same time, Oxford (among others) is in the firing line for the lack of diversity of its entry.And on Thursday The Times reported, “Fee-hungry universities lower bar to entry”. The thrust of this story is that many candidates are now scraping into university with no more than three D grades: apparently, 80 per cent of those relatively low achievers won places.