Who’s Afraid of Grayling Hall?

Or, as it is to be known, the New College of the Humanities? I must say that the prospect of a dozen or so celebrity dons attaching their names to a new private college in London has provoked rather more outrage than might be thought necessary. It is not, after all, as though it is going to be a major enterprise. On the contrary, most of its applicants seem likely to be from overseas or public-school types who fail to win places at Oxford or Cambridge.

Most popular

Steerpike

Morrisons turns on Rachel Reeves

If that proves so then Grayling Hall will benefit students from less affluent backgrounds by freeing up places at top tier universities that might otherwise have been taken by the NCH’s students. This seems a reasonably worthy cause. In any case, the appeal of a liberal arts college, presumably modelled on the New England model*, is likely to be limited.