Joe Saunders, University of York
I am a research student at the University of York and have for several years undertaken teaching work at the university. In June 2025 York proudly announced that it understood the positive role universities have to transform people’s lives, with Vice-Chancellor Charlie Jeffrey boldly declaring that York was going to be a ‘University of Opportunity’, as part of its ambition to be a ‘University for the Public Good’.
Less than a week later the university released a much more subdued statement that it was closing its Centre for Lifelong Learning. It had for over forty years provided short courses on a range of subjects in the arts, humanities, sciences and more. These included both learning-for-pleasure courses and accredited courses for those wishing to work toward undergraduate study.
Offering the opportunity for lifelong learning to a wide range of people is arguably one of the best things universities can do to transform and enrich lives. Without lifelong learning, claims to be a ‘University of Opportunity’ or for ‘Public Good’ ring hollow. But York is far from the only centre closed in recent years. As far back as 2009 Rebecca Atwood reported that UK lifelong learning was on the ‘verge of extinction’. The trend has only continued.
The need for opportunities of the kind offered by lifelong learning is particularly acute for the study of history. Academic history was long the preserve of the privileged, and the financial burdens of university study combined with the recent devaluation of humanities courses by press and politicians threaten recent efforts to broaden access.
We all – teachers, researchers, and students, at York and elsewhere – lose out from the closure of lifelong learning opportunities. There is a rich tradition of adult education by social historians. SHS members will be well aware that Malcom Chase, our former chair, taught in the Department of Adult Continuing Education at the University of Leeds from 1982, becoming head of the School of Continuing Education in 2002. Perhaps the most famous adult educator of history, incidentally, also working in Yorkshire, was E.P. Thompson. Thompson was known for turning the lectern over to his working-class students. In the introduction to his greatest work, The Making of the English Working Class, Thompson highlighted how adult education is symbiotic: ‘I have also learned a great deal from members of my tutorial classes, with whom I have discussed many of the themes treated here’ (Thompson, 1963, 14). The loss of such opportunities across the country will have long-term damage on academic history research, Higher Education and public understanding of the past.
History courses were a huge part of the provision offered by the Centre for Lifelong Learning and naturally popular in the historic city of York. Having taught history to adult learners through the Centre since 2022 I have seen first-hand the enjoyment and learning that students gain. The range in types of students is broad from those with no formal education after secondary school through to history teachers to former academics, and everything in-between. The diversity of classroom demographics makes for a fascinating class dynamic perfect for nuanced discussion of the past. Many students are there just for enjoyment, some for personal and professional development and others who are considering a fuller course of study and are dipping their toes in the water.
In York, where no-one can fail to be drawn in by the history around us, history education, especially of subjects with a local flavour, is hugely popular. Indeed, feedback over recent years has consistently asked for more history courses and more about York and Yorkshire in particular. Many students attend in-person and online history courses from across Yorkshire and even further afield, showing how far the reach of one small Centre can be.
The demand is there and the supply also. The dire situation in Higher Education means than an increasing proportion of passionate and qualified researchers and teachers are not finding employment in universities, or if they are it is on part-time, temporary contracts. There are many who relish the opportunity to share their knowledge with classes of adult learners, even just supplement their other work, as I have done. Such teaching experience is hugely valuable for early career historians who during and post-PhD have few opportunities to teach in York’s Department of History and elsewhere, due to financial and funding constraints, and hardly any chance to experience course management and design.
The University cited the ‘challenging financial climate’ for the decision made, although no financial information has been shared. However, the cost of running the Centre seems to have been low and the turnover potentially high. Tutors were paid less than £20 an hour, with an additional 50% prep time, while students paid about £114 for a ten-week course (or equivalent), £57 for a full day course, or £30 for a half day. The minimum of five students per course covered the cost of the tutor and the small amount of administrative work needed per course. The buildings are already paid for, sitting empty at evenings and weekends when the Centre’s courses mostly ran. Any additional students above the minimum were therefore profit. Even without considering the possibility of charging more per course or improving advertising strategies the Centre must have been at least breaking even.
Education is also about so much more than money, or at least it should be. William Morris, as far back at the nineteenth century believed that education should provide imagination to learners, enabling them to look for a better society. History education is especially an opportunity to grow our understanding of the world around us. It has the special potential of any subject to both inform and entertain, being enjoyable and accessible to all kinds of people. Tim Hitchcock, Robert Shoemaker and John Tosh have argued that the discipline of history prepares its practitioners uniquely well for citizenship, employment and future learning. History therefore has a strong social value, far beyond subject knowledge.
More widely the Higher Education sector is under growing pressure to justify itself. The language of outreach, engagement and impact is pervasive. This is certainly something universities should be doing, and loss of lifelong learning is a retrograde step in this regard. The sub-fields of ‘Public History’ and ‘Community History’ have developed within the wider push for outreach and impact. This has overall been a positive step for academic research and teaching, embodied in things such as the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past at York. But, as history academics rightly strive to bring research into the public sphere, it is devastating to see one of the clearest avenues for this work cut off. Efforts to create ‘Universities of the Public Good’ are clearly undermined by the vast loss of extramural education provision. For historians and history-lovers the gulf is being exponentially widened between academic and public. Our efforts as individuals to engage ordinary people in our research and of universities to have ‘impact’ is becoming structurally much harder.
About the author: Joe Saunders is a PhD candidate working on a social history of the print trade and the Company of Stationers c.1600-50. He taught history through the University of York’s Centre for Lifelong Learning from 2022-5.
Sadly I think U3A has contributed to this decline.
Sadly I think Joanna might be right. Hadn’t thought of that before. I was a member for a few years because Of a music class I wanted to attend. But quite a bit seemed trivial. A lunch club for instance.
A good point to raise. Potentially so. It fills a similar kind of space but not exactly, and only for those of eligible age of course.
I think the decision of senior university managers to drop lifelong learning (and successive govmts de-prioritisation of it) has probably played a larger role than U3A, particularly because lifelong learning courses are/were also accessed by people of working age.
Yes indeed I think the U3A and lifelong learning crossover was limited, as I saw it at York. Certainly the inclinations of senior management are key, and attitudes at government level.