Dream, Myth and Reality: New Universities in England, 1960–1990

The New Universities of the 1960s began as a dream and degenerated into a myth before waking up to reality. The dream was to reform English higher education by example: to recover advanced general education, restore small-group teaching, renew interest in research, introduce cross-disciplinary subjects, and rebuild community in green-field, residential sites. Early euphoria turned to disillusionment, born of unrealistic expectations and student unrest. Finally, they achieved solid institutional success but failed to transform national higher education.