The Re‐Location of Higher Education

Abstract

AbstractThe recent expansion in participation in higher education in England also has a locational dimension, though this is usually overlooked. Three periods of expansion in university numbers may be identified during the twentieth century—in the 1900s, in the 1950s and 1960s, and most, recently, in the 1990s—interspersed by periods of stasis. Colleges of higher education and of further education also currently have an important role in localising study opportunities. The processes behind this expansion have involved both academic drift, the tendency for institutions to aspire to higher status, and ‘academic expurgation’, their tendency to drop lower level work. While the periodic creation of new universities has grabbed attention, much of the‘background’growth in student numbers between times has been part‐time. The distribution of higher education study opportunities across the country remains, however, very uneven, with the rural counties on the northern, eastern, western and south‐western peripheries of the country poorly provided for.