How target of 50% going to university foundered
Within a week of becoming prime minister in 2007 Gordon Brown made a promise that caught universities by surprise: he radically expanded the number of students eligible for grants. It was welcomed by students as a sign that the new prime minister was serious about Labour’s target of getting 50% of young people into university by 2010.
That decision set in train a series of events that has led to the desperate scramble for university places which will begin tomorrow when students get their A-level results, and that now threatens long-term plans to expand higher education …