[UPDATED and moved to the front: two reader comments, below.]
Blair succeeded (just barely) in getting his proposal for tuition fees through parliament. Ever since Thatcher declared war on the public sector, including universities, in the 1980s, British universities have been in decline. The evidence has certainly been tangible in philosophy: there are now only a handful of senior philosophers of international distinction who are full-time in the United Kingdom (Timothy Williamson, G.A. Cohen, Myles Burnyeat, and Michael Frede at Oxford; Simon Blackburn and Raymond Geuss at Cambridge; Sarah Broadie at St. Andrews--and both Cohen and Blackburn have been doing a fair bit of US-visiting recently.). Contrast that with a generation ago, when Michael Dummett, Peter Strawson, R.M. Hare, Bernard Williams, John Mackie, David Wiggins, Richard Wollheim etc. were all full-time in Britain, as were John McDowell, Crispin Wright, Colin McGinn, Christopher Peacocke, Mark Sainsbury, and Simon Blackburn.
The list of philosophers of international distinction who, partly because of low salaries and high workloads, and partly because of an alarmingly early retirement age, have fled the UK at least part-time, and often full-time, in the past two decades include Julia Annas (University of Arizona), Nancy Cartwright (University of California, San Diego), Martin Davies (Australian National University and City University of New York), James Griffin (Rutgers University, New Brunswick), Paul Horwich (City University of New York), John McDowell (University of Pittsburgh), Colin McGinn (Rutgers University), Derek Parfit (New York University and Harvard University), Christopher Peacocke (New York University), Joseph Raz (Columbia University), Mark Sainsbury (University of Texas), Galen Strawson (City University of New York), Gisela Striker (Harvard University), Bernard Williams (late of Berkeley), Richard Wollheim (late of Berkeley and UC Davis), and Crispin Wright (New York University), among others. Jonathan Dancy (University of Reading) may be about to follow suit.
Even at the time of this writing, some of the leading philosophical talent in the U.K. of the next generation--for example, Michael Martin at University College London, Richard Holton and Rae Langton at the University of Edinburgh--are being wooed by the Americans, and others have recently made the move (for example, Jose Bermudez, who recently moved from the University of Stirling to Washington University, St. Louis).
(The financial problems of the British universities have had less effect on the law faculties, since law, unsurprisingly, is a less international discipline [a few fields--jurisprudence, international and comparative law--excepted]. British legal academic culture is also far too different from the American to make much migration possible: the Brits are still serious doctrinalists--what is the structure and conceptual logic of the rules and principles in the various areas of law?--while the top American law schools are increasingly interdisciplinary in their orientation, viewing, more often than not, doctrine as a superficial and unreliable guide to what goes on in the legal system, and preferring instead to turn to economics, game theory, political science, and psychology to understand the legal phenomena.)
There is no doubt the new fees are an inegalitarian measure, as was correctly charged by opponents. There is also no question that without some new source of funds, British universities would be finished as serious players on the international scene over the next generation or so. Since "New Labour" under Blair is in many respects "old conservativism under Thatcher"--most particularly in having acceded to the Thatcherite demolition of the public sector--there is little prospect of increasing public funding, leaving fees as the only remaining recourse. So for the academics in the UK, this vote was a good break; for equality values, it was not.
UPDATE AND CORRECTION: The law affects only universities in England and Wales, not Scotland. Apologies to all my Scottish readers for this blunder!
FURTHER UPDATE: Texas philosophy graduate student David Palmer, who was also educated in the U.K., writes with the following observations:
"You said, concerning income for universities: "...there is little prospect of
increasing public funding, leaving fees as the only remaining recourse."
"I agree with this as things presently stand, but I don't like the dichotomy. One
thing that marks out the US universities from the English ones is the level of
alumni donations and endownments. Sgnificant, and even small, donations, as far as I am aware, are almost nonexistent in English universities. It just doesn't
occur to alumni to give money, and nor do the universities actively seek it. (I
remember, when I was at London, a major fuss was made when money was donated by King's College London alumnus - about a million pounds - for which he had the main library named after him).
"The reason I mentioned all this is that I think rather than introduce top-up
fees, the government should encourage - perhaps through some favourable
legislation or tax-breaks - English universitities to recruit money through
alumni and endownments. There is such a market for money to be gained I just
can't see why the English universities are not actively pursuing this."
AND ANOTHER: Philosopher Daniel Nolan (who called my attention to my original blunder on Scotland) at the University of St. Andrews makes some interesting points about the effect on Scotland and about the Australian experience with tuition fees:
"I just read your blog entry "British universities have a future". I'm not sure 'British' is the right adjective. The bill passed by the UK parliament doesn't apply to Scotland (and as far as I recall, it doesn't apply to N. Ireland either, though it does apply to Wales).
"The new regime in England is obviously going to be very significant for
Scottish universities once the new regime comes into effect in England: there might be a surge of students avoiding the higher fees, and in the medium term it may mean that Scottish universities will be underfunded compared to their English counterparts. So in all likelihood it's only good news for English universities.
"Tuition fees may not be good news for English universities either - many people in Britain are assuming that the tuition fees will mean more money for universities, but that wasn't the experience in Australia, when the HECS system that the new English system is based on was introduced - within a few years of a similar fee structure being introduced, funding per-student was cut dramatically. (In the Australian system, and I suspect in the English one as well, the "tuition fees" go to the government in the first instance - so whether much gets back to the institutions depends on governments). Of course, if the tuition fees don't translate into greater university funding per student, it won't
make much of a difference to the plight of English universities. Unfortunately, I suspect the medium-term funding for English universities still depends on what the Tories will do the next time they get into power, and their current policy pronouncements don't inspire a lot of confidence.
Personally, I'm in favour of deferred university charges like the ones proposed by Blair's bill on equity grounds, even if they don't produce greater university funding, and of course I hope that one way or another the funding for universities in England (and Scotland!) improve. But I'm much less clear than you are that the tuition fees are good news for English universities. And that they're happening in England is almost certainly not good news for Scottish universities, so far as I can see.
"(I'm having trouble telling what informed opinion in Scotland is about whether it will be bad - partly because the issue got overshadowed with the issue of whether Blair's government would fall).
"A lot of this email is relatively uninformed speculation, but the central point is one I'm sure about - it's important to realise the education bill will have very different impacts in England and Scotland!"
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(On a different note, Nolan is a highly regarded young metaphysician who was recruited from a U.S. Department to St. Andrews fairly recently. So there is some reverse migration of top philosophical talent going on--other recent examples include Sarah Broadie's move from Princeton to St. Andrews, and Simon Blackburn's from North Carolina to Cambridge.)
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