Wolverhampton’s recaptured purpose belies ‘rip-off’ degrees rhetoric

A country is defined by the shape and strength of its institutions. For the UK, its universities remain one of the most obvious areas of strength. That is the case despite challenging circumstances – and notwithstanding this week’s headlines about a government crackdown on so-called rip-off degrees in England.

Many observers have made the point that limiting recruitment to courses with lower graduate outcomes and progression rates will hit poorer students hardest. And, by extension, it will hit hardest the universities that work hardest to recruit them: institutions such as the University of Wolverhampton, where I am privileged to have taken on the role of interim vice-chancellor.

Wolverhampton is currently passing through an inflection point, having endured a difficult period that has required significant resilience from our staff and our students. Some of the difficulty has been externally imposed – as for all educational organisations, Covid-19 stands out as (we hope) a once-in-a-lifetime crisis. But more of it had an internal origin, striking at the heart of what we intend to do and be as a university and as a community.

We have begun to redefine and recapture that purpose, and I plan to leave this role to a successor who can take on the clarity of vision that our educational community is already rediscovering.

This renewal has a simple and strong foundation: educational excellence and financial resilience. The two go together – universities that put students and their experience first see lower drop-out rates, higher attainment and higher fee income. This is vital not only to the health of the university but also to the region we represent – the Black Country and the West Midlands.

The University of Wolverhampton is undeniably a true engine of social mobility, an example to the wider region and to the country. Last year 1,960 new students were admitted to the university from addresses in the lowest quintile of the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). This is nearly five times more IMD Q1 students than were admitted to Oxford and Cambridge combined. Moreover, IMD Q1 students make up over 50 per cent of the annual intake at Wolverhampton, which is more than double the average rate of registered English higher education providers.

When you factor on top of that the disproportionately high numbers of local and mature students we educate, it becomes clear that this civic institution is making a disproportionate contribution to social mobility in the West Midlands.

That role is vital. I don’t always agree with Michael Gove, but when he was education secretary he frequently used a phrase that does resonate: “the soft bigotry of low expectations”. He mostly used this about school attainment but he could also have meant the tendency for the higher education sector to pat itself on the back just for giving places to people who, 50 years ago, would never have had the opportunity. Yes, that represents progress. But if that is where it ends, we are not playing our part. So we are engaged in the important work of targeting our support to nudge the odds in favour of these students: maximising their experiences, realising their full potential and closing their attainment gap.

The UK faces huge structural challenges. Some are self-inflicted, others are the price we pay for the benefits of living in a globalised, competitive world. A skilled workforce, fit for a highly digitised, AI-first society, cannot be magicked into existence by the elite institutions alone. This is where the accusations around “rip-off” degrees are so harmful: they take away pride of place and substitute “know your place”.

England will always, and deservedly, have its dreaming spires, but we also need to uphold and honour the dreamers in places like Dudley and Walsall. The social value added by enabling them to flourish in higher education is greater than the valued added by a costly private school – or even a good state school – that gets its pupils into Oxbridge.

What a university like Wolverhampton does is put the warm words of politics into real action. If you want to see “levelling up” made flesh, come and meet our graduates. Despite the challenges of the recent past, we remain among the UK’s top 10 universities for social mobility – and we intend to stay there or move up.

The fires of aspiration are stoked by willing students – and staff – to win, not waiting for them to fail. Wolverhampton’s journey must be the UK’s journey, too.

John Raftery is vice-chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton.