Many proud academics must have spluttered over their morning coffee in the senior common room to learn that a first-class degree, once as rare as hen’s teeth, is now more akin to a hen’s egg: we can all have one for breakfast, it seems, if we can only be bothered to go out to collect it.

A survey by the Press Association has revealed that far from denoting scholarly excellence and a top-notch mind, in Britain a first is today a more likely outcome of a university education than a lower second.

Analysis of official figures for 2015-16 gathered by the Higher Education Statistics Agency shows the share of graduates with the highest possible result has risen by an astronomical 44% in just five years. This sharp increase in the number of firsts is particularly marked after 2012-13, the year in which – pure coincidence? – students were charged higher fees and in which 18% got a first.

Perhaps this is cause for national jubilation? After all, many students will not now need to cope with the social impediment of acquiring what was once fondly known as “a Desmond” after the former Archbishop Tutu (2:2, geddit?).

More degree students graduating with firsts than 2:2s or below

Read more

Although if we are now producing so many students of the highest cognitive calibre, how many of them have noticed the strong correlation between the amount they have to pay out these days and what they get handed back at the end? Several billion pounds surrendered in fees, it seems clear, can buy a quarter of all undergraduates a much better reason to break open the bubbly on results day.

Or is the news that firsts are suddenly more attainable welcomed by students? No young person is pleased, are they, when the driving test is made more difficult? As long as they can drive away at the end, then they are ahead – even if the examiner had to be slipped an extra note or two under the dashboard.

Securing a coveted first was the gateway into the mysterious, ivory-panelled, wooden-towered world of university dons

It used, surely, to be a point of self-respect among university dons that rigorous standards were maintained. Securing a coveted first was the gateway, was it not, into their own mysterious, ivory-panelled, wooden-towered world? So a very persuasive hint indeed must have gone round high table: “Go easy on the dears, especially if I have to justify the noughts on my salary here.”

It appears the country needs to alter the way it views a first. No longer is it a nifty bit of shorthand for someone who has surpassed the common crowd in learning – I guess we still have the few cum laude and congratulatory-first starlets for that. And must employers quickly learn to distinguish the value of top qualifications from different establishments? One question remains: how do we compensate those who have just had their own hard-earned grades from days gone by downgraded? Will there be compensation for the retrospective belittling of their firsts? How much for robbing a former swot of their chance to hint at their yellowing academic honours?

本文來源：https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/14/university-first-more-common-than-lower-second-fees