Lecturers feel underpaid. Many students lack enough money to maintain a reasonable standard of living. University education is central to any modern democratic, industrialised nation. Ministers, in both the Department of Education and the Scottish Office, have issued guidelines in respect of academic standards and decreed the level of funding necessary for a quality university education. Yet the universities, heavily dependent on the Treasury, are now losing their international pre-eminence.
Any advanced country needs universities.
They perform vital academic, cultural and economic functions. It is no accident that almost all of the UK's top universities were founded before the rise of state collectivism. The challenge for the UK's politicians is to recognise the need to return the universities to their former independence. Government will always retain an interest in higher education. Research for healthcare and defence will always have to be funded by the Treasury.