My first thought upon reading about the education offered by A. C. Grayling’s New College was: “Sign me up.” Inspired by the US Liberal Arts colleges, the syllabus will offer the kind of broad, humanities-focused education that is not currently sufficiently valued within British society. The insistence on the importance of the humanities is welcome, as is the notion that students should study beyond the realms of their particular chosen subject, with compulsory modules on ‘scientific literacy’ and ‘applied ethics’ offering innovative ways to broaden the mind.

But then I saw the fees. Do these academics really believe that students will be willing to commit to a £54,000 education at an institution with no proven standing in academic or pastoral terms just because its teachers have a couple of Channel 4 series to their names? A university cannot bulldoze its way into the league tables above excellent, established institutions simply by branding itself as ‘the new Oxbridge.’

A key problem of this government’s approach to education is that it has rendered University attendance a financial choice rather than an academic or personal one. Education has been commoditised with students now having to decide whether a university course is ‘worth’ the money.

Inevitably, that conception of value becomes inextricably entangled with its impact on one’s employability. The course is worth the money if it is going to help the student get a ‘good’ job. The relevance of a humanities degree in the world of gainful employment has always been questioned. “And what are you going to do with that?” the student of English Literature is frequently asked, upon declaration of their chosen degree.

A University that demands over £54,000 from students, and that offers ‘professional skills’ tuition as an added bonus for their money, undermines its own supposed desire to assert the validity of the humanities in their own right. Certainly, it may be effective in emphasising the relevance of the humanities in the working world. But, by making employability a central issue, New College simply succumbs to – nay, supports – this commoditisation of education.

No one is denying the importance of getting a job, if only as a financial necessity. But this university is doing nothing to assert the value of education in and of itself aside from the economic valuation that the Government is insisting upon.

The Guardian article setting out Grayling’s plans asserts that ‘paid-up’ students can go to any lectures they want, even if they are not part of their chosen course. But students at many universities can already do this if they want to, without having to prove that they have ‘paid up.’

Education is seen as a right, and a freedom, not a ticketed event.

Apart from symbolically, how is New College actually improving the standing of the humanities? Certainly, it is not making them any more accessible.

For the insistence that New College will offer ‘30%’ of its students ‘scholarships’ is far from reassuring. What will these scholarships entail; how much will they be worth? Will they offer 100% discount on the fees and total accessibility? Who will be offered them and on what basis? Are Grayling et al confident that they can raise the funds to support them? None of these questions have been answered.

Even if these scholarships were to offer the cleverest from the toughest and most deprived backgrounds free access to this education, it still leaves a substantial majority paying full fees. And it is certain that the only people who will be able to afford these fees will be the absolute financial elite.

Because only those with a certain kind of wealth will be able to pay £54,000 in addition to the extortionate costs of living in London. This education will only be available, not even to all those who could afford to go to private schools, but to those who could afford to go to private schools and then spend £54,000 on a University education. An elite university, for the financial elite: how can anyone argue against the notion that New College is only going to entrench social difference further?

The idea relies on the individuals who have subscribed to it and therefore induces further misgivings. What New College primarily seems to be offering is the wisdom of those who have declared themselves to be Britain’s ‘top academics’. Whilst paying full respect to their academic credentials, what these ‘top’ academics have in common is the fact that they make regular television appearances. Apparently, the best academics are the famous ones. New College seems to be cashing in on the public renown of these figures, relying on the currency of the ‘Niall Ferguson’ name within public discourse.

Are these academics really going to dedicate themselves to teaching in a manner that ensures this institution will provide education of the highest quality? Are they going to steal themselves from their own flourishing (television) careers and their own research? The self-satisfied touting of the names of celebrity academics suggests that there may be more than a little ego injected into this project. As well as, of course, millions of pounds from private investors.

It seems like an uncanny echo of Jamie’s Dream School. Except worse, of course. For with no research element and a comparatively small intake, it is a private school, masked as a university.

Yes, students want to be taught, but they also want to exchange ideas with each other and with the PhD students that, at other universities, may supervise them and may help them to develop academically in ways that more established academics might not be so attentive to. They do not expect to sit, tongues hanging out and pens readily poised, waiting to be told that the West is superior, and that God doesn’t exist.

While it seems churlish to chide academic innovation – especially when it launches a challenge to the supremacy of Oxbridge and asserts the validity of the humanities – it seems that New College is no solution to what is an increasingly desperate situation.

Setting up an £18,000-a-year university simply seems an odd way to get back at the Government for its insufficient funding of the humanities. It is an action that will only entrench the problems already existing within the British higher education system.

Alice Tyler keeps a regular blog at http://alicejtyler.blogspot.com