Hari's piece is powerfully argued and it's difficult to disagree with the fundamental thesis.  But the key question is omitted - why does Oxbridge matter? 

Part of the answer is that it produces People Like Us - it is the staff college for the Establishment because the Establishment is full of Oxbridge graduates.  And of course the fabulous wealth of some of the colleges means that they can stand against the tide if they wan't to - not that they've met any real challenges.  The architects of university expansion in the 1950's and 1960's would surely be astonished to see that this was still the case.  And there is the irony that the interview system was always argued to provide a counterweight to schools that could cram for A-level.

But there are a lot of other questions here.

Do we need an elite pair of universities?  Elite at what? There is ample evidence that those from less priviliged backgrounds perform better at university, because they are more self-reliant, better motivated and on the whole have had to work harder to get there.  Intellectually, how much value does Oxbridge really add?  If other universities had the resources to run the Oxbridge tutorial system, what might they achieve? 

I think we really need to challenge the Oxbridge myth, and start asking some fundamental questions about what Oxbridge is for.

This is the problem that all academic and simple people have.
The best resources are given to the top colleges and the rest are not getting enough. The top cats are rolling in butter (as Russians say) while the lower institution are starved of money.
Nevertheless, they want the overworked and overtired lecturers to produced as much as people who don't teach much (or don't teach at all) do.
The top people get the best tuition and they have so much connection, that the rest of people can rest assured there will be not much left for them to do.
Theaters are very similar I suppose to academia, where connections are very important.

I think the question I'm asking is how good Oxbridge really is once you take into account its highly privileged intake and its huge level of resources.  It's a similar question to that of independent schools; given their ability to cherry-pick, and the fact that their fees often amount to ten times the average per-pupil expenditure of state schools, allowing small class sizes, great facilities and so on, you'd expect the exam results to be outstanding, but are they really doing a better job than, say, an urban comprehensive that is dealing with the sort of social problems - in particular low pupil and parental expectations - that never come near private schools.  Against this background I was wondering what an "elite" university really means, and whether in terms of teaching or research quality Oxbridge is really working at a higher level than the rest of the sector.  I certainly wouldn't abolish Oxbridge or anything of that sort - I just feel that it needs to be integrated into the mainstream, and making the admissions system fair would go a long way to achieving that.

It would be wonderful if State schools could all offer a similar set-up with across-the-board-talented teachers who have the resources and teacher-pupil ratio that could give the perfect education but the reality is that they can't because they're govt funded and that funding will always be squeezed.  I'm not saying all teachers at State schools are bad by any means - I'm sure there are plenty of really good ones who are dedicated to the job, but if I was a teacher with a really good track record I'd be tempted towards a higher paid job.  And a lot of it is about the environment and resources.

The ultimate silliness would be to close these few institutions that can genuinely provide an excellent quality education. Schemes already exist to help talented pupils whose parents can't afford the whole fee. Granted they're few and far between but what's the alternative?

I think a key advantage of a hot-house educational environment is the competition and expectations, so the results aren't just going to be down to privilege or cherry picking, they're down to all sorts of one-upmanship and the expectation that one may be disowned or sympathetically patted on the head by one's peers if one gets one B.... 

This is sort of a separate issue from that of the Oxbridge admission system though, and the proposed reforms sound great. We need the best way to get the brightest pupils the best education.

Baz, those terms you favour are as politically loaded as any. And, as argued in another thread, invoking 'political correctness' to close down discussion is pretty cheap.

Come Ian - you are the one who closes discussion by your OWN relentless take on "political correctness". Every one of the statements I have just deconstructed shouts this loudly and clearly. You leave no room for anybody else even to commence an argument, let alone close it down. I have yet to read a single sentence in any of your postings (here or elsewhere) that shows a regard for education as EDUCATION.

Please don't kick into your own goal.

Baz

Are you suggesting that your time as a student at Christ Church College Oxford damaged your learning experience as an Oxford undergraduate because every night (following a long tradition commemorating the fact that at a certain historic time there were 101 registered undergraduates) the College bell still tolled 101 times every night at 21.05? Or are you complaining that the perpetration of this "tradition" upset you because it was "in fact extremely political" in its motivation. I am not clear. (For what it is worth, those others of us trying to study in Oxford at other Colleges also had to tolerate this clanging every night, though it never occurred to some of us that it was the result of "political" motivation.)

But it seems from the generally well-turned-out presentation of your postings that your education was not that much misdirected (or is this also an unacceptable "political" comment?).

Baz