Degree courses should only be allowed to exist if associated with strong graduate employment outcomes. And now to continue flicking this random switch on and off despite it not being connected to anything, in the belief that it ought to be aligned with the lights coming on.

Unless you're doing a specifically vocational degree, university education is valuable almost entirely for non-instrumental reasons, so it's no surprise that 'employment outcomes' of undergraduate courses tend to reflect the class make-up of their participants.

What the Tories are now trying ( https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jul/16/english-universities-must-prove-commitment-to-free-speech-for-bailouts) is really just to re-shape university education so you can only access a humanities education if you went to private school.

I think in a way this all results from a grave mistake we made at some point: believing all this stuff needs to be taught as part of a 'degree programme', that exists as a pre-requisite for doing certain jobs.

In many ways universities would be better-served by running modules in e.g. philosophy in a way that was open to anyone taking them just because they're interested, where people from the local area can join in on payment of a small fee.

What I would say about this is, having been a guest lecturer on a 'community philosophy course' before: you would, at the very least, get a lot of very enthusiastic and diligent pensioners.