Katharine Whitehorn’s autobiography Selective Memory contains a brilliantly vivid account of studying English at the University of Cambridge. Even in the post-war era, and even in Cambridge, there was more to student life than studying: “...which is how I came to be lowered over the wall of Trinity Hall wearing a man’s Homburg hat and mackintosh...”.Whitehorn is unapologetic about the broader life lessons learnt at University in the late 1940s. After recounting how she was awarded a 2:1 without reading various canonical texts or authors she reflects, “I got a vast amount out of Cambridge, and the place was never supposed to be all about books”.
Whitehorn is right: Going to university is about more than studying. This point has been neglected in the contemporary debate about universities. Both the previous Labour government and the current Coalition seem to be arguing that the value of higher education lies in what it can do for the economy as well as for an individual’s social mobility. This approach diminishes what it is to go to university.
Irrespective of whether students move away or stay in their home town, universities offer them the chance to mix with people unlike themselves and to do things they would never otherwise have considered doing. Why is this ‘eye-opening’ important? Well, for one thing to know that there are different kinds of people out there, makes it possible for you to choose to be yourself.If you didn’t know that there were alternative ways of being, how could you choose?For another thing, cultural, political, racial, religious and class tensions can be ameliorated if only you get the chance to see life from the other perspective.These are the hallmarks of the university experience.The trouble is that talking about the ‘university experience’ in the same breath as discussing the £9000 price tag makes these experiential benefits seem trivial.But they aren’t.
There is no other institution or opportunity that allows people to do this in the same way or on the same scale. Therefore when we are thinking about the purpose of higher education and debating where its value lies we need to bear in mind all the elements that make the experience of going to university so special and important.
After all it was never supposed to be all about books.
Annie Gosling
King George VI Fellow
Click here to listen to Katharine Whitehorn talk about cultural attitudes to old age and death at our recent Changing Expectations of Life event>>
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