The disempowerment of academics and a corporate model of governance have driven down standards, not Blair's 50% target.The new "manifesto" – Talent, Opportunity, Prosperity – published by the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) deals with a number of core issues in the current debate about the future shape and direction of higher education in the UK. Here I want to concentrate on just one of them, namely academic standards. What the AGR says is that the nebulous commitment made by Tony Blair in 1999 – in which (to quote him) he "set a target of 50% of young adults going into higher education in the next century" – has actually devalued the currency of a degree and driven down standards by forcing thousands of students to enrol onto programmes that lack academic rigour and which are delivered by "below-average institutions".
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