I am the co-convenor of the Higher Education Academy's network of Pro-Vice-Chancellors for Learning and Teaching.  We meet twice a year, with the normal pattern being an evening dinner with a guest speaker, followed by a day of discussions, talks and other activities after an overnight stay.   Today was that day.  We had around 35 at dinner last night, and 55 at today's sessions.

Last night our speaker at dinner was Lord Kenneth Baker. Older readers will remember him as a Scretary of State for Education in the 1979-1997 conservative government.  He is now a leader of the Baker-Dearing Trust which is seeking to reinvigorate technical education in schools in England.  What it is actually doing is setting up new 'University Technology Colleges' for pupils aged 14-19.  We in Sheffield have recently won a bid to set up one of these, jointly with Sheffield Hallam.

But it is not Ken Baker's speech last night that I want to talk about.  Our discussions today included a round table consideration of the possible effects of the current changes to fees and number controls for the student experience.  As always, I greatly enjoy being in a mixed group of colleagues from across the whole of Higher Education.  In my group were colleagues from a university offering programmes only to adult learners, a London university with a very high proportion of postgraduate students, a small church-founded university, a big post-92, and me from a Ruseel Group institution.  here are some of our conculsions:

1. It is going to be very difficult to retain diversity within individual universities.  We will see some become even more predominantly widening participation focused than at present, while others become more exclusive in entry standards and in social class mix.  The latter will have very few mature students.

2. A much higher proportion of stduents will study at their nearest university - a point that links very closely to that below.  And movement across the national boundaries within the four parts of the UK will diminish.  For instance, the current Welsh policy of paying the difference between the standard Welsh university fee and that charged in the desitination university for Welsh students who go elsewhere in the UK will rapidly prove unsustainable so that Welsh students will increasingly be limited to Wales, Scots to Scotland, and so on.

3. The subjects on offer within individual universities will become more limited.  Cross-subsidisation from one subject area to another will becoem elss acceptable to students in a period of transparency.  Subject areas will close and institutions will focus their efforts in a smaller range of areas.  For less mobile students (see point 3 above) this will hugely restrict choice.  That will be paradoxical in a period when government rhetoric is about increasing choice.

4. Dynamism in university course offerings will diminish.  Students will make cases that what attracted them to institution x was the range of final year courses, and when they get to that level they will find that the courses have changed and they will feel aggrieved.  There will be many challenges to change.

5. Postgraduate taught programmes will bn ecome the preserve of overseas students, with only minimal numbers of home students - except in areas where there is an immediate and direct link into employment.  But in such areas the competition from private providers will be intense - as it already is for postgraduate training in Law.

It's a depressing prospect.