Model A
Model B
10. At present unit recurrent costs (averaged out across the higher education system as a whole), the "hump" between now and 1994, when the procted numbers fall back to approximately the present level, represents a tota additional cumulative expenditure of about £22 billion (an extra £240 millions per annum in each of the peak years). If this additional cumulative expenditure is measured between 1981, for which a planning figure of 560,000 has been set, and 1992, when the numbers fall to that same level, it amounts to about £1 billion (an extra £120 millions above 1981 costs in each of the peak years). There would also be additional capital expenditure if purpose-built accommodation were provided to match the peak: at current average unit capital costs, to provide new accommodation for 40,000 students (that is, the difference between the 1981 planning figure of 560,000 and the peak of 600,000) could require a commitment of something of the order of £200 million. All these figures are very rough approximations, but they serve to give some indication of the resource implications which would be involved.
11. If it were clear that higher education was going to follow this pattern over the next 14 years, acute problems of resource allocation would arise, especially in relation to other educational needs. In order to illustrate these problems, it is convenient to posit three models. As emphasised at the beginning of this paper, the models do not represent actual policies, but rather alternative approaches towards a policy which might combine a number of different elements. Nevertheless, the models themselves are instructive.
12. This might involve first expanding and then contracting the full-time and sandwich higher education system to the full extent postulated above. The kinds of problem to which contraction would give rise are broadly familiar from the recent history of contracting the teacher training system: they are principally those of acquiring and then disposing of unwanted buildings and of building up and then releasing staff no longer required. The disposal of buildings would perhaps present the lesser difficulty. Some would be becoming increasingly unserviceable in any case and might simply not be replaced. The sale of buildings might not present serious problems, since so much of the higher education plant occupies valuable city centre sites. Nevertheless, public money would inevitably be spent on capital provision for some short-term
purposes.
13. But reducing staff numbers as a whole would be a very difficult process. The age profile of university staff described in Appendix I suggests that the great majority of staff now in posts will still be there in the early 1990s, and many of them will still be under 50. (The problem does not only apply to junior staff: many professors are now under 50). Moreover, a more detailed analysis by subjects taught shows that the age distribution of teachers of the social sciences, for example, is even more strongly skewed towards younger staff than the overall figures suggest. So if it were necessary to shed any significant numbers of staff over a short period, it would be very difficult to achieve this by relying on natural wastage and retirements alone. Even if something could be achieved in this way, a period of steady staffing numbers followed by a period of decline would have a serious effect on the career prospects of junior staff, and would make it difficult to recruit the young talent necessary to the vitality of the higher education system's research function. Some (and perhaps extensive) redundancies might therefore be unavoidable, at a high cost to public expenditure, to morale and - by no means least to the personal lives of those concerned.
14. This model might involve reducing the scale of the projected expansion after 1981, and therefore the need for so much contraction after 1990. It therefore involves a substantial risk of reduced opportunities for qualified
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