The Mormons have a tradition known as the Rumspringa, where they send recent high-school graduates out into the world for two years with a load of cash to spend on sex, drugs and the indulgence of every debauched whim, before making a decision about whether to return to the fold of the Church. It sounds surprisingly liberal, but cleverly functions by way of a forced choice. By the end of the bender, the majority are so sick of their anarchic existence that they rejoice at the thought of a disciplined religious community. The prospect of multiple wives means that the men, at least, don’t have to renounce the fun entirely, even if they have to work all hours to pay for them.
‘People go off for three years, get drunk, get laid’
As an undergrad, I was routinely astonished by how little work my (non-Oxford) coursemates got away with doing. It has since occurred to me that, for many, the British university experience is effectively a kind of Rumspringa, more of a lifestyle choice than a genuine learning experience. People go off for three years, get drunk, spend money they don’t have and get laid, expiating their anarchic tendencies before submitting to the stultifying but reassuringly comfortable routine of working. The alternative is the European model, where university students tend to stay at home and study for longer, often because they have substantial part-time jobs, but also because their exams tend to be much harder. In terms of labour expended, their degrees are arguably worth more as a result, though there is debate over whether they learn to think for themselves in quite the same way students do here.
The present financial crisis afflicting British universities means that we are already seeing a shift toward a European model, or rather toward a two-tier system of high-fee paying institutions and cheaper places offering predominantly part-time courses to a more local student body. In my own admittedly limited experience, having left home makes recipients of the UK-educational Rumspringa a bit more interesting to teach, because they mature faster, often from making mistakes. Apart from marginally alleviating the British culture of binge drinking, one wonders what the broader social implications of a Europeanised university education might be. A hedonically deprived and therefore less pliant, continental-style workforce probably wouldn’t appeal to those now presiding over the cuts.
