The not-so-neoliberal university.

AuthorFreeman, James
PositionPEOPLE AND MOVEMENTS

In February and March this year, strike action hit sixty-five universities across the UK as members of the University and College Union (UCU) went on strike in defence of their pension scheme--the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), which covers employees at pre-1992 universities (and some other smaller organisations). Fourteen days of teaching were lost.

At the heart of the strike was the proposal by the employers, represented by Universities UK (UUK), that the scheme was in danger of ending up in a massive deficit, and that it needed, therefore, to be converted from a (mainly) Defined Benefit scheme guaranteeing a particular level of income in retirement, to an entirely Defined Contribution scheme, which made no guarantees. The effect was going to be to slash the pensions that staff could expect to receive, with the youngest staff the worst affected.

Many of the blogs written and placards waved during the strike argued that the decimation of the pension scheme represented one part of a bigger programme: the neoliberalisation of higher education. (1) So was this dispute about 'neoliberalism' or not?

Just at the moment when university staff seem to be mobilising against the alleged injustices of 'neoliberalism' in higher education, it has become more fashionable than ever to dismiss the term as obscuring more than it reveals. (2) This is partly because 'neoliberalism' has taken on such different meanings across different disciplines and partly because it has become a hackneyed term of abuse in Britain's crude political discourse.

Whilst it lacks precision, I think that pointing the finger at 'neoliberalism' was more justified in the current dispute than is often the case. However, I would argue that in all the talk of 'neoliberalism' and higher education we've missed an important change: that we are no longer living through the age of the neoliberal university. Instead we are experiencing a renaissance of technocratic corporatism that happens to dabble in neoliberal arguments and which has come to an uneasy accommodation with enterprise culture.

Neoliberalism is good for placards

In its defence, 'neoliberalism' usefully highlights the interdependence between the various changes in higher education that led to what might otherwise seem like a narrow, technical crisis over pensions. Rather than blindly accepting the USS/UUK narrative that changes in the investment environment alone made benefit reform necessary, 'neoliberalism' at least prompts us to think about how the introduction of market mechanisms might explain our universities' rather extreme reactions to an actuarial problem. (3)

As the strike progressed, details emerged of the (botched) UUK survey that was undertaken in 2017 to find out what employers' appetite for risk-taking in the pension scheme was. What became clear was that employers' views on the afford-ability of pensions were closely related to how they are adjusting to their new role as competitors in a market. Many institutions' initial support for the switch to Defined Contribution pensions was motivated by a fear that the USS scheme threatened their already precarious balance sheets. Those fears were exacerbated by an apparently innocuous change to Financial Reporting Standards which forced institutions to enter their share of the multi-employer scheme's deficit as a liability on their individual financial statements. (4) Amongst those whose finances are healthier, there is a related feeling of injustice that their duty to backstop USS indirectly subsidises their competitors' borrowing. Both concerns are linked to the risks that have been (and are still being) taken with infrastructure projects that senior managers think necessary to keep up with the competition in terms of recruitment and consumer satisfaction frameworks. Tuition fees and uncapped student numbers are, of course, the background forces ultimately driving these intermediate pressures, and both can with some credibility be seen as attempts to 'neoliberalise' higher education.

Concepts bundled up with 'neoliberalism' can also connect other...

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