The issues discussed in this interview will be taken up in the roundtable “Reclaiming Legitimacy: Universities, Elites, and Democratic Renewal” (May 14, 6–8 PM, Rome), held as part of an international seminar on higher education.
Universities have expanded, globalized, and professionalized—but in the process, something may have been lost. As higher education becomes increasingly tied to markets, rankings, and career outcomes, its civic mission—once central to democratic life—appears more uncertain. What, then, remains of the university as a public institution? Craig Calhoun, Professor of Social Sciences at Arizona State University and former Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, argues that universities have lost clarity about their purpose—and that this is at the root of many of the tensions they now face.
What are the key questions driving this initiative on higher education?
We want to ask some fundamental questions. What patterns of change are shaping universities today, and what might they look like in the next 5 to 25 years? What is the purpose of universities? Can it be reduced to economic goals—training graduates for the labor market, supporting prosperity, and supplying expertise to the state and professions—or do universities also play a role in sustaining democracy? Not just the state, but democratic life itself. If so, how? Through the knowledge they produce, or through the education of citizens?
Do universities still have a moral purpose? Historically, they did—often grounded in religious frameworks, but more broadly in the idea that higher education should advance morality. This dimension is less visible in current debates, yet it remains implicit in many criticisms of the university. Finally, should the university sector expand or contract?
Let’s start from that last question.
Since the post-war period, universities have expanded continuously for more than 75 years. More people attend, institutions have grown, and higher education has become a system—nationally and increasingly internationally, with mobility and interdependence across countries. Has this system become too large? Critics argue it is too expensive, and that too many students are pushed into degrees they may not need, spending years in university without clear benefits. Or is it still not large enough? Access remains uneven, and universities continue to function as gateways to elite status rather than institutions open to all.
This brings us to a deeper issue: the relationship between universities and the formation of elites. Democracies require broad access to education, but they also depend on highly trained leadership. How do we balance these two goals?
Selection is central, especially in the American context. As highlighted in the Yale report, there is deep concern about selectivity: extreme competition for a small number of institutions, unclear and often opaque criteria, and widespread perceptions of bias linked to admissions preferences.
To some extent, this is also true in the UK. But the picture differs in continental Europe. In France, for example, admissions are largely governed by national examinations. The system is still competitive—entry to top institutions is harder—but the criteria are more transparent and consistent, which lends a greater sense of legitimacy. This does not eliminate inequality. Rather, it shifts the question: not how students are selected, but why resources are distributed unevenly—why some universities are better funded or more prestigious than others.
And yet the debate focuses on elite institutions…
These are important but far from the whole story. Most of the American system is made up of broadly accessible, relatively non-selective universities. Focusing on institutions like Harvard University, Yale University, Stanford University, or California Institute of Technology gives a misleading picture. These are exceptional cases: extremely wealthy, highly selective in both student and faculty recruitment, and very productive in research and technology. Yet these institutions represent only a tiny part of the system. They generate disproportionate anxiety precisely because of their privilege: admission rates can fall as low as 3 or 4 percent. There are also both highly selective and less selective institutions in the UK and elsewhere, but the U.S. extremes are striking.
What’s the contrast with more accessible universities?
The most elite US universities operate on a “high-price, high-aid” model: they charge very high fees but draw on philanthropy and redistribution to offer “discounts” through scholarships. This allows them to maintain selectivity while broadening access—but legacy admissions and the influence of wealth mean that they still reinforce structural inequalities. They offer great education to a tiny part of the population selected partly on merit partly on inheritance.
But even though prices may not officially be quite as high for the rest of the US system, there is less money for student aid. So, the question often becomes: is it worth paying? Not can you get in, but should you pay? Like any market, access is open in principle, but not everyone can afford the goods on offer. As a result, money shapes decisions across much of the system more than formal selectivity does.
What about other countries?
While the pressures are shared, the trade-offs—between access, cost, time, and prestige—play out very differently across national systems. In Europe, concerns about cost tend to focus less on tuition and more on time: is it worth investing four or six years of one’s life? That said, fees have been introduced or increased in countries where universities were once free or heavily subsidized, often provoking strong opposition. This raises a parallel question: what exactly are students paying for?
Universities claim to select on merit—but how much of that selection is shaped by wealth, donor influence, and inherited privilege? Haven’t these inequalities helped turn universities into easy targets for populist attacks—such as those associated with Donald Trump?
I think universities have largely stopped asking what their purpose is. Instead, they operate as institutions focused on survival: balancing budgets, recruiting students, and climbing rankings. Prestige becomes the goal—recognition from peer institutions, measurable success in prizes, publications, and status.
In that sense, universities increasingly compete with one another for standing. Do our researchers win as many awards as theirs? Can we attract the same students? Institutions that lack top-tier prestige have to position themselves differently. They can’t promise access to the world’s leading scholars, so they emphasize employability instead. Take Bocconi University: its core proposition is to lead to a strong career and contribute to economic prosperity. That is very different from the traditional justification for institutions like Oxford or Harvard. Yet this economic logic is becoming increasingly dominant across the system.
Which brings us back to the key question: what is the purpose of the university today? And is there any real alignment between what students seek and what universities actually offer?
This is, in large part, a consequence of the expansion of higher education. When only 2 or 5 percent of young people attended university, institutions could pursue a wide range of goals. But once participation rises to 30 or 40 percent or more, the job market inevitably becomes central. In the U.S., where costs are high, this is reinforced by concerns about return on investment and student debt. So we can’t speak of “the university” as a single model. But the problem is that universities themselves are often unclear about those purposes.
How will university change in the future?
Universities are likely to change dramatically over the next 25 years. Online education is expanding rapidly—almost nonexistent a generation ago, now widespread and growing further since the pandemic. At the same time, digital tools and especially AI are beginning to reshape teaching, assessment, and research. But technology is only part of the story. The deeper shift is economic.
How?
Online education is often driven less by pedagogical innovation than by cost reduction and the search for new markets. This, in turn, is transforming the role of faculty and the nature of governance. Faculty self-government has already declined, even in elite institutions, as universities increasingly operate like businesses.
And once universities are treated as businesses, a further question arises: why shouldn’t other businesses take them over? Companies like Pearson have already moved in this direction, and for-profit universities exist across Europe, the U.S., and globally. If higher education becomes a major market, it will attract investment—and that will reshape its priorities. A business-oriented university is likely to favor fields with clear economic returns, such as engineering or technology, over others like political science.
How can universities redefine their public mission toward democracy?
Historically, universities were defined by their separation from the surrounding community—they had walls, both literal and symbolic. Over time, however, they developed stronger ties to the cities around them. There was a period when universities were at the center of vibrant intellectual neighborhoods, with bookstores, cafés, and a broader cultural life. The classic image is the Latin Quarter in Paris. Animating milieux for learning and discussion is very different from both narrow job training and competing for rankings.
Should universities deepen this role?
By fostering critical engagement: when governments propose policies—say, an urban development project—the university should bring expertise into public debate, enabling citizens to question and evaluate those decisions. In this sense, universities do not simply serve the state; they help hold it accountable.
But this role is inherently contentious. Recent attacks on universities, including those associated with Donald Trump, have often been triggered by student protests challenging public policy—from foreign interventions to conflicts like those involving Gaza. Yet such tensions are not unique; they reflect a long tradition of student activism.
So “conflicts” are inherent to public spaces in this sense…
If universities are to function as civic infrastructure, we cannot imagine only polite audiences attending lectures. We must also expect protests, encampments, and louder, more conflictual forms of participation. Media involvement amplifies these dynamics, connecting campus debates to broader public discourse.
Opening the university in this way means relinquishing some control. It cannot remain a space where professors simply deliver lectures, nor one where administrators dictate what can be said. A genuinely civic university must accept a more open, and at times unruly, public role.
To what extent are current attacks on “wokeness” also attempts to delegitimize core liberal purposes of the university—such as defending minority rights, promoting diversity, and combating racism?
Universities could play a crucial role here—not by defending a fixed doctrine, but by examining the internal tensions within liberalism itself. We often speak of liberalism as if it were coherent and universally agreed upon. In reality, it is a bundle of ideas that do not always fit together.
The most obvious tension is between economic liberalism and political or human rights. Many who strongly support free speech and civil liberties question whether the same logic should apply to property or markets, arguing that liberalism has been shaped—and perhaps distorted—by its accommodation with capitalism. There is also a second tension.
Which one?
That of the expansion of rights. Classical liberalism emphasized “negative liberties”—freedom from interference, such as freedom of speech. But more recent claims—like a right to a job or to welfare—imply positive obligations from others. These are fundamentally different kinds of rights, and they are harder to reconcile within a single framework.
For decades, critics—from feminist scholars to theorists of race and pluralism—have pointed out that an exclusively individualist language of rights captures some injustices but obscures others. These critiques have not disappeared; they have deepened.
So what follows for universities?
The point is not to resolve these debates here, but to recognize that they are open. And this creates a challenge for universities: it is no longer obvious what set of “liberal values” universities are meant to defend. Their task, instead, is to clarify purpose—to ask what counts as a good purpose today. One might return, in broad terms, to the idea that universities pursue the true, the good, and the beautiful. But even that requires reinterpretation in each historical moment. And ours is clearly a moment that demands collective rethinking.
But are universities equipped to do this?
Part of the problem is that universities have stopped prioritizing this kind of clarity. Instead, they repeat general principles—academic freedom, for example—without fully interrogating what they mean in practice. Is academic freedom simply the absence of censorship, or does it include the real ability to pursue research independently?
And what are the consequences of this?
All of this suggests that the problem is not simply that universities have become “illiberal.” It is that they have lost clarity about their purpose. And in that vacuum, even shared values become contested in practice.
Cover photo: Supporters of Palestine gather at Harvard University to show their support for Palestinians in Gaza at a rally in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 14, 2023. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP)
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to see and interact with our latest contents.
If you like our stories, events, publications and dossiers, sign up for our newsletter (twice a month).