Covid-19 will not challenge the dominance of the campus-based model of higher education because its funding and employment structures are 鈥渢oo deeply entrenched鈥�, according to a sector leader.

Katherine Fleming, provost of New York University, told Universities UK鈥檚 International Higher Education Forum that 鈥渙ur systems 鈥� our faculty review systems, HR systems 鈥� are all geared towards a traditional in-person model鈥� of teaching.

At the economic level, 鈥渨e need student revenue to survive. That鈥檚 long been the case in the US, and is now the case in the UK. So, we might think we are ready to move to new models [of teaching online], but if those will change our pricing structures, there will be tremendous resistance within higher education,鈥� Professor Fleming said.

鈥淪houldn鈥檛 universities be behaving differently? Absolutely. But I don鈥檛 think that they will, because higher education itself is so deeply entrenched in these substructures,鈥� Professor Fleming said.

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It was 鈥渙ne of the paradoxes鈥� of higher education that academics saw themselves as being at the cutting edge when it came to research, yet existed within rigid structures such as tenure and peer review, Professor Fleming said. She added: 鈥淚t means we are all complicit in maintaining the status quo as much as we possibly can.鈥�

Fundamentally, the reason that higher education 鈥渉as not changed, nor will it change鈥� was that it was run by 鈥減eople like me鈥eople who are middle-aged鈥who] are expected to have had a certain level of education鈥�, including a decades-old PhD, she said.

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Professor Fleming said there was already evidence that little had changed, as NYU had already had聽more than 100,000 applications this year, 鈥渁n all-time high鈥�.

鈥淭he surge in applications is something that elite universities across the board have really seen and clearly connects to the fact that there is tremendous demand from students to get back to normal,鈥� she said.

The 鈥渆lite genre鈥� relied on the fact that students come together in person, over three to four years, get to know one another, engage in co-curricular activities, and that was 鈥渘ot replicable in the internet sphere鈥�, she said. 鈥淧eople are hungry to return to it.鈥�

Lord Willetts, president of the Resolution Foundation and England鈥檚 former universities minister, disagreed. He said he believed higher education would 鈥渁dapt鈥� to a new normal, which would see a significant return to in-person teaching, but with a greater mix of online learning.

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Also speaking on the panel, 鈥橣unmi Olonisakin, vice-principal (international) at King鈥檚 College London, added that pressure for change would come from students from Africa, Latin America, India and China.

鈥淲e know that middle-class parents [in those regions] put up everything they have so that their children can be part of this global and elite structure,鈥� she said. However, 鈥渢hat elite structure is disappointing those students by not creating the kinds of human beings that we need鈥�.

These students wanted a greater focus on social responsibility in their education, with greater efforts to tackle class, gender and racial inequality. 鈥淵ou have a new generation of people that are making demands of higher institutions and leaders. You can no longer say to them [that] it is聽OK [for them] not to have access to the kind of education that they want,鈥� Professor Olonisakin said.

anna.mckie@timeshighereducation.com