The economy depends on more graduates, says university chief

Professor Michael Driscoll, chair of the CMU Universities group, is telling the government to be "more ambitious".

He warns against a negative frame of mind that is suspicious of success and assumes that "more must mean worse".

The economy needs more graduates if the UK is to "compete on the global stage", says Professor Driscoll.

The message from the new universities group will be delivered in a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference in Brighton, where Professor Driscoll, the vice-chancellor of Middlesex University, will be talking alongside the Higher Education Minister, Bill Rammell.

Lagging behind

"Many OECD countries already have 60% participation in higher education," says Professor Driscoll.

This includes Australia, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Poland, Norway, Sweden and New Zealand.

A report this month from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development highlighted that the UK has fallen below the OECD average for university entry.

While more countries increase the numbers entering university, the UK is struggling to achieve its target of 50% by 2010.

Professor Driscoll says that there needs to be a more confident and ambitious approach to such targets for university - and that the economic and individual benefits make a clear argument for the need for more graduates.

As well as other industrialised countries pulling ahead of the UK in higher education, developing countries such as China and India were catching up, he said, with increasing numbers of graduates.

The resistance in the UK to increasing the numbers going to university was in part a reflection of a "fear of success", he said.

As with improvements in A-level results, he said there was a tendency to see this as a sign of lower standards, rather than accepting that more people might be doing better.

The OECD has reported that there is no evidence that increasing graduate numbers will mean lower graduate salaries.

Funding contradictions

Professor Driscoll also wants the government to support the universities which are most effective at reaching the type of young people from poorer homes who are under-represented in higher education.

He says there is a contradiction in calls to widen participation when funding arrangements do not work to reward this. In terms of annual turnover, he says his own university has £5,800 per student, while Cambridge University has £39,000 per student.