Professeur de philosophie, retraité de l’Université de Montréal

“Lionel Robbins
on Higher Education.”

Communication présentée le 23 juin 2012 dans le cadre du Congrès annuel de HES (History of Economic Society) tenu à l’Université Brock à St-Catherines, Ontario.

Résumé

Tous les économistes connaissent Lionel Robbins pour ses travaux dans divers secteurs de l'économie et ils le connaissent peut-être encore plus pour son livre classique sur la méthodologie économique. Cependant, Robbins est beaucoup moins connu des économistes pour sa contribution majeure en tant que planificateur universitaire. Au début des années 60, il a été nommé président de la commission de l'enseignement supérieur créée par le gouvernement britannique pour faire face au problème posé par la demande massive d'enseignement supérieur attendue pour cette décennie. Au cours de cette période, toujours sous l’influence d’une vision optimiste de l’État providence, de nombreuses nouvelles universités ont été créées en Grande-Bretagne et le rapport Robbins a clairement contribué au développement de certaines d’entre elles. Le document résume les principaux points de ce rapport et illustre dans quelle mesure il a été influencé par les opinions de son auteur sur l'économie. L'équilibre entre l'offre et la demande dans l'enseignement supérieur, le fait que l'éducation soit un investissement, le règlement des salaires, le coût (coût d'opportunité) de l'éducation et les diverses manières de la financer sont tous examinés dans le rapport et brièvement abordés dans le présent texte. Certaines réactions contradictoires au rapport, tant à l'intérieur qu'à l'extérieur du comité, sont également prises en compte.

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All economists know Lionel Robbins for his works in various sectors of economics and they know him perhaps even more for his classic book on economic methodology. However, Robbins is far less known among economists for his major contribution as a university planner. In the early 1960s, he was appointed as chairman of the Committee on Higher Education that the British Government created to face the problem raised by the massive demand for higher education expected for this decade. During this period, still under the influence of an optimistic view of the Welfare State, many new universities were created in Britain and the Robbins’s Report was clearly instrumental in the development of some of them. The paper summarizes the main points of this report and illustrates to what extent it was influenced by its author’s views on economics. The equilibrium between supply and demand in higher education, the fact that education is an investment, the settlement of salaries, the cost (opportunity cost) of education and the various ways to finance it are all discussed in the Report and they are briefly discussed in the present paper. Some conflicting reactions to the Report, both inside and outside the committee are also considered.

Most economists know Lionel C. Robbins for his highly influential Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science published in 1932 and also for his important works in microeconomics, macroeconomics, history of economic thought, in addition to his later chairmanship of the Financial Times. However, this significant contribution to all sectors of our field is just one dimension of Lionel Robbins’ personality. Like Keynes, he was an economist for whom fine arts were highly important in life. He has played a significant role in this domain as a very appreciated chairman of the trustees of the National Gallery during 14 years [1], as a member of the Board of trustees of Tate Gallery [2] and as a director of the Covent Garden opera house during almost 30 years [3]. Moreover, he was involved in some aspects of British political life both as a peer of England and as Director of the Economic Section of Offices of the War Cabinet during WW II.

However, it is another sector of his multiple contributions that I want to examine here, namely his intervention on university affairs. In early 1960s, Robbins was appointed as chairman of the Committee on Higher Education that the British Government created to face the problem raised by the massive demand for higher education expected for this decade. During this period, indeed, young students born with the first offspring of the baby boom were attaining the door of Higher education. As a response to this new demand, seven brand new universities (Sussex, East Anglia, Warwick, Kent, Essex, York and Lancaster) were just created in Britain [4] and the Robbins’s Report for the Committee on Higher Education was clearly instrumental in the development of some of them. Robbins himself was involved as the chair of the Academic Planning Board of the University of York. [5] He was involved in administrative responsibility, not only at LSE, where he taught during so many years, but also at the Courtauld Institute of Art, which was a constituent college of the University of London and which allowed him to reconcile his interests for art and for university affairs [6]. Finally, by the end of his life, he was named Chancellor of the new university of Stirling in Scotland [7], actually an honorific responsibility, but a responsibility that consecrated his dedication to the development of higher education. This involvement in the administrative functioning of the world of Higher education did not reduce his theoretical interest for these questions : after the publication of the Report, he wrote two books exposing his personal views on higher education, namely The University in the Modern World in 1966 and Higher Education Revisited in 1980.

The Report of the Committee on Higher Education, better known by the name the Robbins Report was published in 1963. Robbins was reluctant to accept to be the chairman of such a committee, which forced him to abandon a book on economic theory. His reluctance was clearly based on his appreciation of the highly demanding character of such a job. This appreciation turned out to be not too exaggerated, given that a few months before delivering the final manuscript of the Report, he told, according to Susan Howson, that he “did not think he had ‘ever work harder at any time in my career.’ ” [8] Actually, it seems admitted that the Report as such (323 pages excluding the six voluminous appendices prepared by the statisticians and other members of the staff) was totally written by Robbins himself if we forget the editing work done by Miss H.L. Gardner, a member of the Committee [9].

Susan Howson devoted to the Report the chapter 23 (pp. 858-896) of her biography of Lionel Robbins. She developed thoroughly a very detailed analysis of the way Robbins dealt with this duty, the relation between Robbins and the twelve other members of the Committee, the most significant debates between them, the travels Robbins and a few members made in order to obtain information, the art museums that Robbins managed to see by these occasions, the relations between Robbins and his family during this period, the reception of the Report, etc. Relatively little is done however to analyse the core of the argumentation. The aim of the present paper is to briefly emphasise the structure of the main argumentation developed in the Report.

This analysis is facilitated by the fact that chapter 2 of the Report, entitled “Aims and principles”, put forward a principle “assumed as an axiom” that was referred to at various occasions in other chapters and which was later christened “the Robbins principle”. This principle is presented in the following way : “courses of higher education should be available for all those who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so.” [10] I surely not pretend that Robbins was developing his report in an axiomatic way, but it is nonetheless interesting to see that at various point in the development, the principle was invoked to make a step further. It is also interesting to see that the principle commanded consequences about which opposite considerations were to be expected, in such a way that a frequent problem for the committee was to realise a subtle equilibrium between various requirements, an equilibrium that, in the handling of Robbins, was not too unlike an economic equilibrium.

According to Robbins whose estimates were based on the statistical analysis made by his staff, Britain was not to be in position, in the sixties, to offer enough places in universities to her quickly increasing population of young candidates who were attaining the age to choose higher education. This problem was presented in the Report not only as very serious and demanding, but as extremely urgent. Its penultimate chapter was devoted to emphasising “short-term emergency” [11]. According to the Report “In the five-year period from 1962/3 to 1967/8 the number of university places will need to grow by nearly 50 per cent.” [12] Even when all the places planned by Government are taken into account, “a further expansion of the order of 10 per cent” [13] was required. Even the seven new universities which were either just opened (Sussex) or to be opened during the 1960s would not be sufficient to satisfy the effective demand for university courses. Therefore, given that a sizable proportion of these young people were undoubtedly considered as having the ability required to qualify and that many of them will desire to choose higher education, it follows from Robbins principle that a large number of new places should be created urgently to absorb this expected flow of entrants in Higher Education. A solution had to be found.

Clearly, the capacity of some existing universities had to be increased. The new universities, which were not still completely planned, were encouraged by the Report to provide their campus with a relatively large capacity. However, the determinant element for quickly creating the required places in Higher Education was to upgrade the Colleges of Advanced Technology, the so-called CATs, to the status of university. The CATs had been founded not before the 1950s but, according to the Report, many of them became quickly institutions of respectable quality. Upgrading them implied that they had to develop programs of liberal arts and not being limited to science and technology. That was expected to provide them with a prestige that could attract professors and students of superior quality. In fact, after a few years, British Government adopted the essential of these recommendations and decided that ten out of the 24 existing CATs were to be upgraded to the rank of universities : this is the origin of City University London, University of Bath, University of Surrey, University of Salford, etc.  However, even this did not seem to be sufficient to solve the emergency problem. Therefore, in its chapter on emergency, the Report recommended as temporary measures before the availability of new classes to resort to evening courses for students encouraged to study and to correspondence courses with meetings in Summer. [14]

In order to face all these problems, the Report recommended that these new universities be generously granted. Such grants were judged still more important because they must allow these new universities to provide students with decent living accommodations.  Given that many of these new institutions were to be developed in relatively small towns, availability of lodging risked being very limited for students who, more and more, choose to leave family home. [15] Consequently, the Robbins Report recommended that a large number of new residences should be built. [16] And huge residences were actually built in the years following the publication of the Report, especially in the seven new universities.

This rapid expansion did not go without risks and Robbins was clearly conscious of them. It was important for the Committee to make sure that this creation of new universities (the seven already in development and the ten CATS to be upgraded) will not be paid by a reduction in quality. Therefore, the Report insisted in recommending to Government to facilitate as much as possible (including with attractive salaries) the staffing of these new institutions with a personal of quality. In this context, it even made comparisons with Oxford and Cambridge whose success would be partly due to the fact that their professors are more generously paid than those of other British universities. [17] Be that as it may, for Robbins and his Committee, an important part of the solution rests in continuous growth : the expansion in the number of students should produce enough potential teachers “provided that the rate of expansion is not accelerating.” [18] Apparently, Robbins’ approach of the question owes something to the economist way to analyse growth. However, Robbins’ analysis was never limited to matter of numbers ; it considered the equilibrium between research and teaching [19] and even methods of teaching, in which another kind of equilibrium between lectures, written work and periods of discussion was recommended. [20]  All these propositions are clearly nuanced and well thought, but almost necessarily very much is left to subjective good judgment.

What seems to have been a constant source of concern inside the Committee was the quality of these new institutions from the point of view of teaching and research. After all, if “all those who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so” must benefit from higher education, it is crucial that the courses offered be perfectly appropriate to higher education. The analysis of that situation by the Committee caused some regrets to Robbins when he revisited the question in 1980. A consequence of the necessary expansion was the “rapidity of recruitment of junior staff” and it seemed unavoidable that some of the new teachers were to be little qualified “in knowledge of the essential disciplines and wider purposes of universities.” Robbins even claimed, with a laudable honesty, that he was “somewhat ashamed” for having not recommended “special measures to offset this complicating circumstances.” [21] 

A related source of concern was the possibility that increasing the number of universities will almost necessarily imply a reduction of the standards of admission of students. The problem was serious, but Robbins and the Committee defended the idea that standards would be maintained in so far as the increase in the number of places implies an equivalent increase in the numbers of students. If the new students attracted in higher education are considered to be “qualified by ability and attainment” in a proportion comparable to that which characterises the present students, there would be no reasons to think that admissions standard should be reduced, even though it is true that they could not be raised in these conditions. The Report is full of such analyses attempting to establish some conditions of equilibrium in the growth of various elements in constant movement. Naturally, in this kind of context, equilibria rest mostly on estimates, hypotheses and extrapolations, but the latter were based on statistical data that were presented in the five appendices of the Report and on consultations that were conducted very consciously and seriously by Robbins.

The next problem of equilibrium for the Robbins Committee concerned the relations between university places to be created and filled by students and places in the working market to be offered to these students after the completion of their courses. The solution proposed to this difficult problem does not strike me as particularly original, but it is interesting to note that it reflects Robbins’ views, both as an economist and as a humanist. As an economist, he did not hesitate to treat education as an investment in human capital, which is perfectly similar to an investment in a comparable type of capital good given that “the production of trained manpower is like the production of long-lived capital goods.” [22] This more or less implicit reference to the concept of “human capital” does not clash with Robbins’ humanist convictions, since he recalls us that this phrase was invented by classical economists and that the goal of this kind of investment “is not productivity as such but the good life that productivity makes possible.” [23]

Thus, education should be oriented towards happy life and knowledge rather than towards productivity as such. The Report illustrates this point with a kind of mental experience : “if a series of nuclear explosions were to wipe out the material equipment of the world but the educated citizens survived, it need not be long before former standards be reconstituted ; but if it destroyed the educated citizens, even though it left the buildings and machines intact, a period longer than the Dark Ages might elapse before the former position was restored.” [24] One may be convinced or not by this story but the idea is tat human beings can be invested in, just like machines, but they are machines much superior because much more adaptable to new circumstances than typical machines of mid-20^th century were. Therefore, the Report and Robbins personally insisted so much on versatility [25]. The Report claimed, “The majority of graduates will, we hope, be sufficiently versatile to be capable of varied employment” [26]. Higher Education must form versatile students who had opportunity to be familiarised with various domains and can adapt themselves to the requirements of the working market. As Robbins put it, this education is successful only if it contributes “to enlarge the general powers of the mind.” [27] I am not sure that versatility can so easily generate a satisfactory equilibrium between the kind of learned people supplied by universities and the human capital required by the working market, but this illustrates well that for Robbins the humanist, general culture, including pure science but also arts subjects, is important in order to develop adaptability to various employment.

Concerning this superiority of learning over machine, the Report adds that education “furnishes perhaps the most conspicuous example of the importance in social analysis of the difference between what economists call the ‘private’ and the ‘social” net product of investments” [28]. It is true that the whole society draws considerable benefits from investments in education, but I doubt that this is a so conspicuous example of the phenomenon that the Report called “external economies” next page. [29] Indeed, the nuclear explosions mental experience just suggests that the benefit for society (from investments in education) is larger than the one produced by investment in material equipment, but does not deny that the latter may produce also a benefit for society, while smaller. If such were the case, it would be admitted that any type of investment produces normally such “external” benefits for society, but the concept of “external economies”, which describes a phenomenon whose very existence was frequently contested, might hardly be illustrated by almost any economical investment. If the point was to show, but this is not very clear, that education is a public good, the mental experience would not be very compelling since it simply suggests that education would have just some more reason to be said a public good than any other good has.

In any case, the required growth raises quite substantial costs, which must be financed. With the chapter concerning the financial and economic aspect of the proposals, we touch a ground that is more familiar to economists. Robbins introduces this chapter in promoting the concept of opportunity cost :  “In the last analysis, the real cost of anything is what has to be foregone in order to have it.” [30] This fact recalls us that Robbins was influenced by Austrian economics, but in the Report he applied this understanding of the notion of cost to higher education in order to compare the cost for Government of financing a project respectively by taxing or by borrowing : “the cost of education to a community must in the ultimate analysis be the value of the good and services sacrificed by devoting resources to this end rather than to some other ; and whether this is paid for directly by the imposition of taxes or by the raising of loans the current sacrifice is the same.” [31]  A brief annex of the appendix Four of the Report gives some more details on the components of the opportunity cost of education, namely (a) the resources of manpower and goods devoted to education, (b) the estimation of eventual rents that existing buildings might provide if they were not used for higher education, (c) the resources devoted to the production of new buildings, (d) the estimation of ‘earnings foregone’ by the fact that students “are not in full-time employment” [32]. As admitted by the Committee, opportunity cost (clearly invoked in points (b) and (d)) “is a very complex conception ; and its measurement involves many difficulties.” [33] No doubt that opportunity cost makes possible a larger understanding of the cost of education for society, but as admitted in the Report “where some 90 per cent of expenditure on research, teaching and administration is met from public funds, it is cost in terms of public expenditures, both current and capital, that is relevant ; and fortunately this is much easier to measure.” [34] Nonetheless, the Report returned to the idea of opportunity cost to compare financing by taxation and financing by loan. The point is that if a loan plan can ease the burden on the budget, it is not true that it also eases the burden on general resources. From this point of view, “the current sacrifice is the same. A tax to meet capital costs as they arise imposes the necessary abstinence on one set of people, a loan on another set ; but prices and costs remaining constant, the amount of resources involved is identical” [35] After acknowledging the fact that “indirect and long term effects” of these alternative methods of finance “differ considerably”, the Report reasserts that it is certain that “the loan method per se must impose exactly the same current use of resources as the revenue method.” [36]

It is in this context that the delicate question concerning the choice between financing students in higher education by loans or by grants is discussed. The Report considered arguments on both sides. The fact that students benefiting from higher education will be in position to repay when gaining more later and that loans may increase students’ sense of responsibility were balanced by the fact that “the connexion between higher education and individual earning power can be overstressed” and that young people emerging from education with a heavy debt can be undesirably anxious when it should be time to risk. After serious hesitation between arguments “evenly balanced”, the Committee opted against recommending “immediate recourse to a system of financing students by loans.” [37] It is interesting to note, however, that in his book of 1980, Robbins exposed — under the form of letters to an imaginary correspondent — his reassessed views on higher education. In this book, he became more sensible to “the increasing burden of public finance” than he was in the 1960s when this burden was still hidden by “the mythology of the bottomless public purse.” [38] Then, he reconsidered the pro and cons arguments about loans versus subsidies and underscored the “beneficial effect” of loan on students who might “have a greater incentive to get value for money.” [39] However, Robbins, who remained strongly concerned by the graduates’ indebtedness that can result from loan, paid more attention to a “solution” that was neglected by the Report. He admitted “It is a matter of regret to me, personally, that I did not at the time [of the Robbins Report] sufficiently appreciate the advantages of the Prest scheme, in spite of the fact that it had been already promulgated.” [40]  The Prest scheme was the proposition of professor Alan Prest who suggested that the problem of too heavy repayment “can be solved by the provision that repayment shall only be required, if subsequent earnings pass beyond a figure which makes reasonable interest and amortisation possible. Until then the loan carries with it no liability.” [41] Incidentally, it is a scheme of this type that was one of the first propositions of the Quebec Government to the students who were boycotting courses on spring 2012 to avoid tuition fees increase in colleges and universities, a proposition that students have immediately rejected as a possible solution to the conflict.

Before concluding, the Report discusses the administrative arrangements that exist or should exist in order to facilitate the implementation of its 178 recommendations, both in the “internal government of institutions of higher education” (chapter XV) and in the  “machinery” of British government (chapter XVII). A quite interesting chapter is also devoted to the various dimensions of academic freedom (chapter XVI). However, I will not discuss in this paper the content of these three chapters, which are less related to economics. I will only add one word about the only recommendation that induced a member of the committee, namely Mr. Harold C. Shearman, to dissent and add a “note of reservation” to the Report. [42] It concerns the machinery of Government and, more precisely, the recommendation to create, besides the Secretary of State for Education, which would continue to cover other levels of education, a new Ministry of arts and science which will be responsible for higher education as well as for Research Councils, Arts councils and standing Commission on Museums and Gallery. This recommendation was based on various considerations among which was the idea that “the organic connexion of the universities with other forms of organised research is even closer than their connexion with the work of the schools.” [43] Actually, this recommendation was not adopted by the Government who “followed rather the minority recommendation of Harold Shearman and established the Department of Education and Science, which incorporated the old Ministry of Education and all the institutions for which the Treasury was previously responsible (universities, research councils, museums and galleries and the Arts Council).”[44]

Robbins however could console himself, given that he was able to say that “so many of our recommendations” were accepted [45] and that his involvement in this Committee was for him a rewarding experience and a contribution which, in spite of various disappointments, has considerably influenced the development of Higher Education in Britain. Indeed, the Report was anxiously expected by those who had responsibilities in the development of universities, its plea for urgent expansion stimulated the will of vice chancellors of the new universities to attempt important increase in the capacity of their institution and, unsurprisingly, The Report became the most widely read text on the development of universities.[46] In the concluding chapter of Higher Education Revisited, Robbins recalled the importance of the principle that has guided the whole enterprise : “Let me say at once that I still believe in the so-called ‘Robbins’ principle — a complete misnomer since it was the unanimous recommendation of a whole committee — namely that places in higher education should be available for all those who have the ability and willingness to benefit by them.” [47] The point was to offer to all those who satisfy these criteria “the same opportunities in the future.” Whether the requirements of this principle was satisfied or not in Britain during the last part of the 20^th Century, it seemed to me interesting to see how an important economist has, with a remarkable honesty, treated such a sensible question concerning both justice and education. [48]

References

Committee on Higher Education, 1963, Higher Education Report of the Committee appointed by the Prime Minister under the Chairmanship of Lord Robbins, 1961-63, London : Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. The Report + Appendices Two (A), Two (B), Three and Four published in independent books by the same publisher (Appendix One published with the Report and Appendix Five to be published later (?). The Report (but not the Appendices) is available on line at http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/robbins/

Howson, Susan, 2011, Lionel Robbins, Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press.

Muthesius, Stefan, 2000, The Postwar University, Utopianist campus and College, New Haven and London : Yale University Press.

Robbins, Lionel, 1966, The University in the Modern World, London : Macmillan and New York : St. Martin's Press, 1966

Robbins, Lionel, 1980, Higher Education Revisited, London : The Macmillan Press.