A confidential Whitehall paper that sketches a vision of an employer-led expansion of higher education raises the eternal question: Do universities exist for economic reasons? Or, less tangibly, do they exist to increase the sum of what academics like to call "civilisation"?

The document, by officials at the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and seen by the Financial Times, indicates the government wants the bulk of future spending increases to go towards business-focused degrees: co-designed by employers; co-funded by employers; and served up according to a timetable that suits employers.