Drowning by numbers

Demand for higher degrees is set to mushroom. Stephen Pritchard assesses how the sector will cope.

The world of the postgraduate will be unrecognisable in a decade's time. The market will have exploded into a wealth of taught doctorates, emailed tutorials and supervisors scurrying to meet the demands of their less tolerant customers. Predicting what this brave new world will be like depends crucially on one major change: the future of postgraduate study, like so much else in higher education, is determined by numbers.

The Harris report, published in May this year, devoted a large part of its deliberations to the consequences of increasing postgraduate enrolment. Questions of funding, quality, even university structure, need answers.

The extent of this expansion should not be underestimated. Growth of 50 per cent or more is discussed openly by vice chancellors, although some universities are starting from a relatively low point. The University of Central Lancashire, for example, expects its postgraduate population to grow from just over 2,000 to about 3,000 students in the next few years.

By the middle of the next decade, postgraduates will account for between a quarter and a third of all students at most universities; Essex is one predicting such numbers. Some universities may become predominately postgraduate.

Much of this growth is demand-led. In a country where more than a third of school leavers go on to get degrees, many more will want the advantages that a higher qualification brings, especially in the job market. Universities are responding by offering an unprecedented number of courses. New universities in particular are putting significant resources into their postgraduate work. In his report, Harris highlighted some of the issues that must be addressed if expansion is not to have unpleasant side-effects.

Some measures are consumerist: tightening up on the typology of courses; introducing codes of practice. Others address quality issues, such as the restrictions on the departments that can attract public funds for research students, and the call for universities not to take any more resources from undergraduate education to fund the expansion of higher degrees.

Harris said less about how such a system might look. Putting this question to higher education leaders reveals that the postgraduate student of five or ten years hence will enter a very different landscape.

The good news is that his or her needs will be taken far more seriously than in the days when postgraduates were outnumbered by first degree students ten-to-one. In the next ten years, most universities that have not already done so will set up graduate schools or smaller, faculty-based graduate research centres.

There will be more common training, in areas such as research methods and transferable skills. There will be better resources, and academic and social facilities will be set aside exclusively for postgraduates' use. But this will not be a free lunch. Calls for better treatment will have been provoked by higher fees.

As Gordon Conway, vice chancellor of Sussex University, says: "Postgraduates will be much more demanding, as they are paying themselves. If they are borrowing Pounds 8,000, they want to be sure they are getting value for money."

Universities will also respond to demand by making study more flexible. Again, this trend is underway, with more higher degrees offered on a part-time basis. Changes in the type of study will be accompanied by developments in the location of study. As well as distance learning, more postgraduate study will take place at work: practice will join teaching and research as the building blocks for a higher degree.

The future of postgraduate education is being driven by the rise in the master's degree. Taught courses are growing fastest: they are where universities report strong demand.

The PhD student is likely to be even more outnumbered than now. While there will be a postgraduate explosion, few universities expect more than limited growth in conventional PhD places.

Master's courses are expanding largely because applicants will pay their own fees. Only the very rich can find funds for a PhD.

The traditional doctorate is also too complicated for most would-be postgraduates seeking to update their knowledge or gain new skills. But there will be a demand for a course beyond the undergraduate, or even masters level. Taught doctorates are already developing to fill this need for some professions.

Academics see a future with intermediate-level qualifications that are still based on research. At the University of Central Lancashire, Alan Roff, deputy vice chancellor, believes professional people will create demand for a new type of qualification. "People working in science, IT, even mainstream business, marketing and finance, need to carry out research with a small 'r' as part of their employment," he says. Modular postgraduate degrees will allow students to tailor their research training to the needs of their jobs.

The traditional PhD will survive as a passport to academia or pure research, but it too is likely to be less constrained within universities. More doctoral students will carry out their research with an employer, with the university providing research training and supervision.

Applied research in science and engineering will be the first along that route, but social sciences will follow, perhaps involving the public sector. Greater collaboration will create more research centres, some jointly with business, some bringing together universities on a regional or national level. These centres might be remote from the university's main campus, and support for graduate students through channels such as the graduate school will be vital.

To flourish, research needs well-funded laboratories, archives and computer resources. In the wake of the Harris report, much was made of the possibility of a "super league" of elite universities.

Professor Harris denies that the report endorses any such moves, but it seems almost inevitable that research will concentrate in a smaller number of institutions.

The move to research centres will be important in determining the future for postgraduates, because good researchers can pool their talents - and their abilities to attract outside funding. Centres created by groups of universities are one way institutions can keep up.

Technology can also help: supervision over video links or the Internet can help make up for staff shortages in some areas of research. This is vital for students. As one vice chancellor at a new university warned, for postgraduates the choice is often between study at the local university, or no study at all.

Michael Harlow, pro vice chancellor at Essex University, is one academic who agrees that state funding for research is likely to focus on a "relatively small number of institutions". But, he points out, it is only continuing the trend for research council money to follow leading academics or departments.

This may not matter. With less money overall for research, universities will become more adept at finding their own resources. Much of it will come from students. Programmes such as teaching assistantships, where doctoral students agree to teach in exchange for fees and a stipend, might become the norm.

In turn, this could lengthen the time allowed for a PhD - a move many students would welcome. Postgraduates will follow undergraduates in the trend towards working during their degrees.

Faced with ever-growing numbers of undergraduates and masters students, and fewer lecturers, universities might conclude that it is better for postgraduates to teach than to cook burgers. Even in the tallest ivory towers, practicalities will determine how the postgraduate's future looks.