The collapse of Labour’s “red wall” in the North and the Midlands in last week’s general election confirmed how much has changed in our political landscape in recent years. There have been so many obvious signs of change - the Brexit vote itself, for instance - but some of the signals have been less easy to see even though they will have profound implications over the coming years.

One change that shows how much our politics have shifted is in perceptions of higher education. Up until the past couple of years, the Whitehall view was that higher education was simply “a good thing”. The belief that our particular model of HE, dominated by full-time residential bachelor’s degrees, needed to grow was without question. The funding model itself reflects this - universities are in the incredible position of being able to recruit as many people as they can, without any funding constraints, because the loans are uncapped. How many other public bodies have that luxury?

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The perception of HE as motherhood and apple pie is now over, surely? Rather than being pleased about that because of the probable new investment that colleges will receive, I am worried about the potential of damaging policies being implemented in the university sector. Fixing college investment should not be at the expense of HE, but it might feel like that over the coming years as new Conservative MPs start to get to grips with the system.

A new focus on colleges and skills

Those new Conservative MPs elected in previous Labour strongholds will inevitably put more pressure on a government that had already started to shift its focus away from HE and into colleges and skills. It’s inevitable because many of those new MPs are in post-industrial, left-behind constituencies that are crying out for the sorts of education and skills that colleges are so good at. Technical skills, training, literacy, numeracy, apprenticeships and flexible adult courses to name a few. All of these have been subject to drastic funding cuts and policy-tinkering, with the sorts of constraints on numbers that universities would be appalled by.

I wonder how long it will take for the new batch of Conservative MPs to realise just how unfair our post-18 education system is? They will surely be questioning why any of their constituents who has a level 3 qualification can proceed to a residential bachelor’s degree but opportunities for anyone with poor literacy, numeracy, low-level qualifications, out-of-date skills or aspirations to reach a level 2 or level 3  are severely limited and strictly capped.

Those same new MPs may also be worrying about how many of their constituents will have also worked out how unfair this is. Recent polling shows that the public mood has shifted, with more wanting to see investment in technical education and skills rather than simply more HE. That will have not have gone unnoticed in political circles, and a response will be needed.

Augar review recommendations

The best response to this would be to simply uncap all learning for adults, but that’s not likely to happen soon, even if we wished it would. As the pressure comes to increase opportunities for those adults who have not participated in HE, there will also be pressure to limit the costs of HE as well. Let’s take a look at the maths. Last year’s Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) report showed that the demographic upturn in young people, coupled with modest participation rate increases, would see an extra 300,000 people in HE by 2030. At £50,000 per student, that’s £15 billion of extra debt, 50 per cent of which will be written off in the year it is issued under the Office for National Statistics’ new accounting approach.

Combine that maths with the Augar report analysis and recommendations (described in the Conservative manifesto as “thoughtful recommendations...(which) we will consider carefully”) and we look set for some significant changes. On top of that, we know that there is increasing interest in how to nudge demand into “more economically valuable courses”,  judged mainly by the crude output of incomes, five or 10 years after graduation.

With college funding likely to grow, universities could be forgiven for thinking that we will be rubbing our hands with glee about all of this. That couldn’t be further from the truth. We need thriving colleges, alongside thriving universities, as part of one system. Our focus at AoC will be to use the “thoughtful recommendations” from Augar to make the case for a radical, joined-up, more integrated post-16 education, skills and apprenticeships system that works for all in our society. One that allows people to achieve their ambitions, delivers productivity increases and helps to build the tolerant, inclusive and global society we all deserve to live in. I hope universities will work with us on that.

David Hughes is chief executive of the Association of Colleges