The publication of the 1963 Robbins Report marked the start of a seismic shift in British higher education – from an elite system to mass participation. Over the next forty years, the
provision of university places was massively expanded; targets for increases to student admissions were exceeded. This unprecedented expansion was not just a matter of numbers,
however. Social demand for more degrees was set against shifting economic and political realities. As a result, the period also saw a drastic recasting of relations between higher education institutions and the state. For universities, this meant major changes to funding and scrutiny, including drives towards managerialism and marketisation, which had profound impacts. This thesis presents new perspectives on this historic period for British higher
education by radically reducing the scale of its research, to a single department in a single institution: History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck, University of London. Through
in-depth analyses of archive files held by the college, plus original oral history interviews with past and present HCA staff and students, it establishes the reality ‘on the ground’ for
academics in the post-Robbins era. Vitally, however, this work is not only concerned with what the ‘macro’ – mass higher education expansion – meant for the ‘micro’ – daily departmental life. Critically, it also considers what its ‘microscopic’ findings might mean for historical understandings of the bigger picture.