UK universities have been under continuous but gradual pressure from government policy to re-adapt to a new pedagogic structure. While the most egregious effects have been felt more recently, the shift roughly began with the introduction of selective research funding in 1986, polytechnic institutions becoming universities in 1992, and the introduction of variable fees in 2003, which has snowballed since. Alongside a mix of new regulations and relaxations, the field of higher education has become marketised, which has unsurprisingly turned out to not be a good thing!

Post 2008 financial crisis, the HEI sector has started to perform some of the more predatory behaviours of neoliberal capitalism, with university vice chancellors being paid more than £200,000 p/a salaries and the teaching jobs becoming more precarious and lower paid. This mirrors the growing chasm of wealth inequality manifest amongst developed nations. The majority of students now are the same millennials coping with a declining standard of life in comparison to their antecedent generation. But it’s tricky to gauge how these miasmae operate within an institution such as an art school. How do the humanities respond to an intensive competition for research funding like REF or the large scale models taken from STEM practices? Year on year, the market logic in the governing bodies of the university hardens. The malign changes often occur by confounding stealth or by slow bureaucratic creep. …