50years ago only about 10%-15% of young people in the developed world went to university whereas now it is about 50% although both these figures were and are rather less in the UK. Most of this great expansion has been due to the needs of the economy and the need to compete in a world wide market.

There are those who feel this expansion has been at the expense of standards and the pursuit of excellence. More means less goes their argument. Others reject this and point to better teaching and the undoubted increase in the quality of life for more people with education being a major contributory factor.

However there is a suspicion that excellence can exclude others - it is elitist. But surely this is the way it has to be whether we like it or not?

There is another side to the story of course. How do we pay for this expansion and how do we maintain standards and excellence within our universities? The Director of the London School of Economics, Howard Davies, is on record as stating that 25 years ago leading schools in the UK spent more per student than Yale and Harvard, this proportion has now fallen to just 25% of leading Ivy League spending per student.

So we do have a problem. Now UK students have to pay fees - although they are well below the cost of providing undergraduate education. However it is obvious that there is a need to explore alternate funding. This could come from business although basic research should continue to be funded by Government.

However to maintain and improve standards it is thought that additional funding could be provided from the commercial sector and individual researchers or a team of researchers would compete to receive it. By doing this it is felt that the best minds would remain or be attracted to research within our universities and these people would also be available to teach undergraduates so providing our undergraduates/graduates with an opportunity to see excellence.

This appears to be the way forward.