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Privatise top five UK universities to form Ivy League, says Imperial head
Tim Ross01.06.09
Britain's best universities should be privatised to form an elite US-style Ivy League, a leading higher-education figure said today.
Sir Roy Anderson, head of Imperial College London, warned that Britain's world-leading reputation for higher education was under threat from funding cuts and a lack of government vision. He suggested elite academic institutions such as Imperial, Oxford, and Cambridge should be given the power to charge unlimited tuition fees and take on more overseas students.
In an exclusive interview with the Standard, Sir Roy called for a debate over the privatisation of the country's top five universities, which would also include the London School of Economics and University College London.
He suggested that the best universities should be allowed to “float free” from the Government's funding regime to charge unlimited fees, putting them on a par with US Ivy League institutions such as Princeton, Harvard and Yale.
Sir Roy said: “How important is higher education to UK Plc? Staggeringly so. It is a multi-billion-pound industry. It is one of the few things we are world competitive in.
“If you take the top five universities, they have enormous potential to earn income for Britain. How best to do that? My own view would be to privatise them. You don't want to be subject to the mores of government funding or changing educational structures.”
Sir Roy's remarks come at a critical time for higher education. Chancellor Alistair Darling has ordered hundreds of millions of pounds to be cut from the college and university budget.
Ministers are due to launch a review of tuition fees to consider whether universities should be able to charge more than £3,000 per year. University vice-chancellors have already called for fees to rise to £6,500. Recent world rankings placed Britain second behind America, with four universities in the top 10.
Sir Roy said: “Higher education is a product that Britain does superbly. Even if in 20 years' time Imperial is a private institution able to compete with the Harvards and Yales, like them, I very much hope we would have the scholarship endowment to continue to take people from all walks of life.”
Sir Roy also condemned the Government for being preoccupied with dying industries such as car manufacturing.
Reader views (12)
Forget that. The unofficial Russell Group has enough power as it is without this kind of previlege. I should know as I taught at a US Ivy League, its a devisive system. Endow all Universities or none at all.
- Hawkins, Dorset
Sir Roy Anderson has a point but there must be a way for poor but best of the world including Britain able to study. I happened to have had some idea of elite univesities in the world more than 3 decades ago which included ICL. It must be appreciated that considering the population of USA ,300 and UK , 60 million,Britain has an enviable reputation of having 4 top universities among top 10 in the world by last year's ranking .
This is a great achievement considering there are universities in australia, canada and Japan let alone singapore able to attract top studenet from anywhere in the world.
Unlike cambridge or oxford, Imperial college London is at a walking distance from the cultural,financial and architectural captial of the world. So don't complain of buildings but look around and have a great time while in London.In any case Imperail college tower can be seen miles away from london like St Paul cathedral.
Impression i have is chinese tend to give schlarhsip to chinese students and how many poor tamils from sri lanka got imperial college scholarship , other than given via commonwealth which is not going to be for a tamil from Jaffna ?
I think Imperial college is much more elegant and grand than Harvard in terms of buildings.Imperial College london can boast the best of their graduates have built up the infrastruture of countries like singapore, Malaysia,Hongkong compared to Harvard over past half a century.
- Vijay K Pillai, UK
Surely St Andrews should be included in the 'Top 5'? It has been ranked 5th for several years, and has moved to 3rd this year (above any London university).
- Tom Watson, St Albans, Hertfordshire
I guess Minnie is one of the rude Kensington residents who came to the pre-planning consultation meeting at Imperial on Friday and relentlessly laid into the architects whose designs are not only breathtaking but ground breaking in terms of energy, space and light conservation. I am personally very proud of Imperial and the fusion between it's old buildings (Qeen's Tower, Royal School of Mines, Royal College of Chemistry) and the new Fosters buildings (Blue Cube, Tanaka and the forthcoming SEQ Building). If these buildings can be seen as culturally enhancing in places such as Gateshead (The Sage), London City Hall and St. Pancras Station then I see no reason why they are not equally qualified to put their beautiful and innovative designs in South Kensington. 'Albertropolis' may have been a historical beauty but it was also at the cutting edge of it's time, built for the advancement of sceince, technology and engineering - a mantra that Imperial is continuing. You cannot expect an institution like Imperial to look backwards. And anything is better than the sixties architecture these new buildings replace. However, you distracted me from the point of the original article. Intersting stuff. We'll see where this debate goes next!
- Kirsty Patterson, Imperial College Student, London
Well as nearly 50% of Imperial's Mathematics intake are foreign students anyway and billions of pounds of extra funding has gone to Universities over the last ten years can somebody explain what Sir Roy is complaining about? He's getting his cake and eating it. If they want to 'float free' then fine, but no more public funding.
- Mark, London
Imperial is, with out doubt, the ugliest University in England.
They have devastated the Kensington area with really "bling" buildings.
If they are incapable of building any structures of any cultural merit then I hate to think how far down this once proud University has gone.
- Minnie Ovens, London, UK
They should be given significant tax concessions so that they can be truly independant as many of the American uinversities are
- Mw, somerset uk
They can start by changing the Uni's procurement depts for a start. They are out of touch, disorganised, clueless, paper wasting etc etc
- Fly, london
Another dire attempt at self promotion by the rector of Imperial College. Like his predecessor, Sir Richard Sykes, Anderson tries to be the crown prince of british education but proves himself to be the clown prince. What he said is nothing new; it is merely a little sir echo of Sykes's view - and nobody took him seriously either.
The article makes the point that international rankings (such as those compiled by the Shanghai Jiao Tong university) show four UK universities in the top ten. Indeed, Cambridge has been ranked second only to Harvard on more than one of the international tables, with Oxford either surpassing or ranking alongside both Princeton and Yale.
It begs the question of why these institutions are so bad that we need to privatise them, when all the evidence shows that they are so good. I feel one of those entertaining Bird and Fortune sketches coming on, where they ridicule the need to privatise a highly profitable state organisation in order to save it because it is .. er.. profitable.
He also sounds ridculous in suggesting that the motor industry is dying. Millions of people still want sophisticated cars. It is overcapacity that is the problem. The German and French governments intend to solve it by ensuring British production is wiped out, leaving an advanced and profitable motor industry over there with the UK having just a rump. The complaint of British workers is that the goverment is doing little or nothing to help them at all.
- William, London
If nothing else it will stop this social engineering nonsense playing havoc with the whole admissions process and the abuse that leads to. Selective comps plus private tuition plus lower entry requirements ring any bells Tony and Cherie?
Also how long before some bright spark at whitehall notices that a predominance of firsts go to privately educated children and starts to interfere with final results? Hmm
As for my daughter its Ivy league all the way. At least she'll be accepted/rejected on merit!!
- Steve, Brentford
The american ivy league were private at inception and continued as non profit making universities.The solution for the U.K.higher education is to create elite private universities and not privatising the top historical monuments of British Education
Naj al-Zaid
- Naji Al-Zaid, kuwait city,kuwait
What a load of old Codswallop. There'll be a revolution in this country before that archaic attitude ever makes a comeback.
- Londoner, London, England
