The affluent can have their souls enriched at university, so

The latest Tory crusade over ‘rip-off’ degrees continues to stereotype students based on class

‘We must crack down on low-value university degrees.” Who claimed that and when? It might have been Rishi Sunak last October. Or Sunak last July. Or Sunak the previous August. Or Nadhim Zahawi five months earlier. Or Michelle Donelan in November 2020. Or Gavin Williamson in May 2020. Or Damian Hinds the previous year. Or Sam Gyimah in 2018. Or Jo Johnson in 2017. Or even Labour’s Margaret Hodge more than 20 years ago.

This time, it was Sunak on the election trail last week. “There are university degrees that are letting young people down,” he told reporters. Around one in five students “would have been financially better off” not going to college and “one in three graduates are in non-graduate jobs”. Sunak promised to scrap “rip-off degrees”, replacing them with 100,000 apprenticeships.