In brief, the argument of this book is simply this: the current system excludes people from a university education unfairly, and at the points in their lives when they might most need it, or want it, or when they would benefit from it most. In contrast, our proposed system includes those who would benefit, and it includes them on a schedule of their choosing. If we give arguments for our proposal beyond this, there is a danger that we concede too much to the status quo. When someone gives extra arguments for a view that they hold, arguments beyond their central motivating argument, it can sometimes suggest to their audience that those arguments are necessary to establish it; they suggest that their central argument doesn’t succeed on its own – as the philosopher Anthony Flew puts it in God and Philosophy, ‘if one leaky bucket will not hold water, there is no reason to think that ten can.’ Nevertheless, acknowledging that risk, we make some further positive arguments for our proposal here. What’s more, there are certain sorts of argument against which we’d like to defend our proposal, so we take up a few sceptical perspectives here as well.

This was Michael Gove, then justice secretary, campaigning for Brexit. Unable to name a single economist who viewed the UK’s prospective exit from the UK with enthusiasm, Gove lashed out at all experts indiscriminately. His words were heard by those who disagreed as the epitome of post-truth politics, where politicians pay scant attention to arguments or evidence or any of those things we typically look to when we want a reliable guide to the truth. But there is another way to hear what Gove said, and we suspect it is closer to what he intended and closer to how it was heard by those he was primarily addressing. People in this country have had enough of being told what to do and what to think by people whose methods and terminology are mysterious to them; where the means by which those people come to their conclusions are opaque or outlandishly complex; and where these barriers of language and method, not dissimilar to those we explored within universities in Chapter 3, make it impossible for a lay person to participate or contribute on equal terms.