Vince Cable on the recession and the numbers of students going to University

Picked this up from the Guardian politics blog. It refers to interviews on Radio 4's Today programme, where Vince Cable said "Trying to reach Tony Blair's declared target of 50% of youngsters going to college is very expensive, and we won't be able to afford it as we pay the bill for rescuing the banks".

This is followed by lots of comments from Guardian readers - a surprising number of who think that the numbers in Universities should be reduced, that some degree subjects should not be studied. No doubt they are all middle aged graduates of older Universities.....

It is an interesting point though - do we as a country invest in raising participation in HE, on the understanding that a better skilled workforce can raise GDP, or do we look to making savings to pay for rescuing banks?

Working in an institution heavily committed to widening participation and on a journey to increase its numbers, some of these ideas come as a bit of an anathema!