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Stefan Collini · From Robbins to McKinsey: The Dismantling of the Universities · LRB 25 August 2011

On the higher education White Paper: The gradual movement of responsibility for higher education within government towards business departments; the tortuous attempts to balance a free market and a command economy; the odd language (“the mission-statement present”, “the dogmatic future tense”); that studying something often isn’t wholly enjoyable; that choosing a university “cannot primarily be price-sensitive, adaptive, feedback-governed consumer behaviour”; the 1963 Robbins Report’s emphasis on intellectual inquiry rather than “meeting the needs of employers.”