Throughout the twentieth century and the first decades of the twenty-first century, the UK higher education went through significant changes. We identify three epochs, through which the institutional logic and purpose of university were redefined: an elite reconfiguration before the 1950s; a democratic reconfiguration from the 1960s on; and an…

Two periods in British higher education are compared for the approaches taken to widening educational access. It is concluded that government policy in the postwar period emphasized expansion for the purposes of labor force development, whereas more recent expansion policy reflects a government commitment to greater accountability and social…

Based on the 1981 seminar of the Leverhulme Programme of Study into the Future of Higher Education, papers are presented that propose an agenda for institutional change in higher education, based on demographic, economic, social, and political forces of the decade. In "The Challenge of Change," Leslie Wagner considers the interaction…