Academic mass production

Higher education has expanded exponentially across the world since the 1950s. In Britain, for example, fewer than 20,000 students were accepted onto undergraduate degree courses each year in 1950 compared with more than 350,000 today. Globally, the increase is even more dramatic.

Graduates are not the only thing being mass produced by modern higher education. Universities are centres of both teaching and research. They are also competing with each other – for students, for staff, for grants – and they are judged in large part by research output.

The pressure placed on academics to publish new books and papers has led to a dramatic increase in the number of works produced (LEFT), but has it also had a negative impact on their ability to address wider narratives? For example, perhaps Roman studies would benefit from more discussions of broader topics such as the nature of Roman urbanism (ABOVE). — The pressure placed on academics to publish new books and papers has led to a dramatic increase in the number of works produced, but has it also had a negative impact on their ability to address wider narratives? Image: Rich Grundy.

The measure of research is publication. Academic staff and postgraduate students are expected to publish. So, along with everything else, there has likewise been an exponential increase in the publication of journals and papers.

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