First Class? Challenges and opportunities for the UK's university sector

Over the past few decades, higher education in the United Kingdom has been transformed, expanding to a mass, bordering on universal, system. There are now almost 2.4 million HE students. In this position of relative strength we are left with two broad options: to accept the status quo, or to ask ourselves some difficult questions about what we really want HE to achieve, and what sacrifices we may have to make to get there.