Getting it wrong on higher education

Dynamic New Labour always talks about the so-called “skills crisis”; the “need” for more funding for higher education. But we mustn’t forget that blunt spending increases for higher education may encourage an ever-larger proportion of the population to stagnate in courses that will neither teach them anything particularly useful nor improve their chances of finding employment. Worse, there may already be a tendency – even without government subsidy – for people to get too much education. I look at these concerns in a US context in a piece for the American Spectator. The issues, however, are universal.

Last week the Brown government made a classic false economy with higher education spending. It abolished the Commonwealth Scholarship scheme to save £10 million a year. This scheme has, for 49-years, brought bright students from Canada, Australia and New Zealand to study at the UK’s best universities (which are cash-strapped compared to their U.S.