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Coalition policy has led to renewed interest in the debate with the aim of higher education

made in 1810, Cardinal Newman did in 1852 and Lord Robbins did in 1963. Now, recent changes in the politics of higher education in the UK have led to increased interest in doing it again - with concern in some quarters that we are not doing enough - that is, the definition of the college are

Two events will take place tomorrow to fix the problem. Research Center for the arts, social sciences and humanities (Crassh) Cambridge University is launching a series of public lectures, entitled The idea of ??the university to mark its 10th anniversary. Then, at the University of East London, a public debate on "The future of the university" will take into account the goal of a college education and must pay for it.

Goldhill Simon, director of Crassh, which brought together speakers and intellectual historian Stefan Collini, astronomer Sir Martin Rees and universities minister David Willetts in the coming weeks, says the classes are time "because government policy is an attempt to change the nature of the university that we have. "

Stephen Anderson, director of the Campaign for Social Sciences, which organizes the debate in London, says that "there is a feeling of living in a real-time experience," while the government created a market economy in higher education is not yet clear how this market will moderate constant work. It suggests that the potentially far-reaching changes are made for reasons of funding, without any idea of ??what the broader effect. "What we all seek is a broader view of what the final product might look like," he said. "What we're all trying to work?"

For Humboldt, the German philosopher and diplomat, a university had to do with the "whole" community of scholars and students participating in a common search for truth. For Newman, it was to teach universal knowledge. For Robbins, an economist commissioned by the government of the day to prepare a report on the future of higher education, universities, had four objectives: education in skills, promote the general jurisdiction of the mind, the progress of learning and transmission of culture and common standards of citizenship.

Collini, "a way to start thinking about their distinctive character is that they see them as institutions devoted primarily to broaden and deepen human understanding." This suggests that "it is a rather odd: there are no other institutions that have their main objective. "He wants to talk about their role" in a more fruitful than the clichés of "contributing to economic growth," which currently dominate public debate on the issue. "

But Mike Rustin, a professor of sociology at the University of East London, who spoke in the discussion of London, has a problem with that. He said that opposition to government policy for higher education of people, as Collini has so far been expressed in very traditional - with the idea that the university has an intrinsic value and good

For the philosopher Onora O'Neill, who will give a lecture in Cambridge, diversity is here to stay, "even though some consider its manifestations, such as the University of MacDonald and software company internal and probably a little impertinent. "She argues that what is needed is greater clarity about the exact nature of these missions are varied.