News reaches us that the government's Office for Fair Access (OFFA) says that universities should start actively looking for and encouraging potential revenue sources - sorry, students - from the age of seven onwards.
But why?
It's all to do with universities wanting to charge more than £6,000 a year tuition fees. Currently, anyone who hasn't been living in the Sahara desert, Antarctica or on the dark side of the moon for the past couple of years knows there's been a massive u-turn when it comes to government policy on tuition fees.
And since very few universities want to charge less than the government-permitted maximum, a huge number of institutions charge now more than that £6,000, but they've got to do something in return.
They have to create what's referred to as an "access agreement", meaning, basically, they've got to set out how they're going to prevent people who wouldn't be able to afford to go there being put off going.
Or, to put it more simply, how they're going to encourage people who can’t afford to go to their university to, er, go to their university.
From where we stand, it looks like they've got an uphill struggle on their hands.
But never fear, the Office of Fair Access is here to help.
The guidance OFFA is offering says that universities with the fewest pupils from what they euphemistically call "disadvantaged groups" need to spend 30% of all income from fees about £6,000 on outreach work, which could include sponsoring independent academy schools, putting university staff on governing bodies and helping teachers.
Essentially, then, they're looking at spending about £1,000 on each student they admit from those disadvantaged groups.
Professor Les Ebdon, the head of OFFA says: “While work with teenagers is very useful and should continue, we are keen to see more long-term schemes that start at a younger age and persist through the school career.
“It’s crucial that outreach encompasses those who are not yet on the pathway to higher education as well as those who are already considering it.”
In short, get'em while they're young.
However, is this policy - let's not call it cradle-snatching - really going to work?
How many seven-year-olds have already mapped out their lives ahead of them to the point where they know what they want to do after school this afternoon, let alone after secondary education?
And what kind of criteria will universities be using to judge whether or not to invest a third of any resultant fees persuading a very young person that university is their best option?
And how much are universities going to lose when all their persuasion comes to nothing?
No, this idea looks doomed from the start, but it's going to take a few years (at least until those seven-year-olds reach university age) before we know whether or not we're right in thinking that.
But this whole idea does beg the question "Why?"
Could it be that universities have taken a look at the drop in number of admissions this year ... and weighed it up against the rise in the number of apprenticeships - and the dramatic rise in the number of applications for those apprenticeships – in the same timescale?
Could it be that they've put two and two together?
And could it be that they've then looked to a future where university is only for those who really can afford it - whether or not they can find a graduate position where they earn enough to cover their student loan repayments?
And then could it be that they've looked at a future where, as in many European countries, a UK apprenticeship becomes the accepted route into a career?
And then looked at their bank balances in such a future?
The word "desperation" somehow springs to mind.
