UNIS: OLD VS. NEW

If someone asked you what the oldest British university was, you'd probably be right in guessing Oxford. Not really any surprises there.

At over 850 years old, the University of Oxford weighs in at the oldest we've got.

Probably.

Others can come up with crazy stories about predating the dinosaurs. Durham, for example, officially founded as recently as 1832, can claim highly tenuous descent from a bunch of monks living on Holy Island in the 8th Century with only the Venerable Bede and a few sheep for company. 

Meanwhile, it’s even harder to say which is the youngest university since colleges are constantly being given the right to use the U-word in their names, but it still doesn’t necessarily make them universities.

But does age mean anything? Well... 

• Apart from anything else, age brings stability: There are parts of some old universities that haven’t changed for centuries. At the University of Stirling, for instance, the admin offices are in an ancient castle.
  
  Meanwhile at St. Andrew’s, there are rituals involving gowns and walking backwards that are so old people never stop to think about how mad they are. 
  
  
• Age brings reputations: People believe that if they’ve been doing it for a long time, they must have been doing it right. To which there’s some truth.
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• And age brings facilities: Not necessarily good ones, but facilities nonetheless. If a university’s been around for 150 years, it’s had time to get around to building a library, say, a students’ union building and accommodation.
  
  Problems, however, can crop up precisely because the building in question was put up decades ago and is about ready to be torn down and replaced — perhaps because it’s falling down or perhaps because it’s just not up to the job any more.
  
  Take Durham again. Each year a few students at University College can live in a genuine Norman castle that has all the charm of a dream holiday. In practice though, the downside is that the place was designed in the days when people slept in chain mail and threw peasants on the fire to keep themselves warm.
  
  
• Finally, age brings security: Many centuries of famous ex-students leaving endowments (or even just putting in a few good words in the right ears) have made some of the older Oxbridge colleges among the richest educational establishments in the country.
  
  With a bit of financial security under their belts, older universities can often keep well up to speed, which, what with huge expansion in student numbers over the past couple of decades and new technological demands on universities, is a must.
  
  Sure, they may have problems with old buildings (particularly sticky when it comes to making provisions for wheelchair users), but if they’ve got the space, they can add to them by building new ones alongside.

Meanwhile, youth brings vigour, a thrusting go-get-’em attitude. New methods of teaching, new types of course, new approaches to age-old ways of doing things. Age ain't everything.

No one can deny that the face of higher education has changed drastically and rapidly. And a lot of the change has been led by new universities.

Some have been accused of being degree factories — overlooking the universal education to provide the university education.

But the truth is that’s what a hell of a lot of students want, especially the kinds of students who’re as new to the higher education game as the new universities — mature students, working class students, female students, vocational students, local students.

Before the sixties, they were like needles in the academic haystack.

Many of the newer universities were purpose-built from scratch and so the facilities do the job they’re supposed to do very effectively.

On the other hand, they were often thrown up in a hurry and started falling apart before the paint was dry. Some of the newest universities are still building and for a few years it may be like turning up in Majorca to find you’re sleeping in a cement mixer.

If you’re building a university, your priorities are the basics first. Things like lecture halls, teaching rooms, offices, a library, staff salaries — that kind of stuff. Bars, welfare, computer rooms and student accommodation come next. It can take a while before they get around to sports facilities, theatres and shiatsu massage parlours.

Whatever your choice, be it a university as old as time or the new kid on the block, make sure you do your research and decide what's right for you.

Yeah, the Norman castle seems really cool. Come December though, you'll realise how literal that title is. You might regret dismissing the newer universities with their fancy central heating when you and your new mates are huddled round a textbook bonfire.