London Thinks - Trigger Warning

Universities are the intellectual heart of modern society. Students attend university to study, research and explore new ideas. In the faculty, students have access to some of society’s greatest experts and thinkers. Higher education benefits not only those individuals able to access it, but society as a whole. Higher education correlates with lower levels of unemployment and poverty, better health and higher levels of social and civic participation- including volunteering, voting, and blood donation. Should universities give in to their students and make sure that campuses are free from intellectual challenge both inside and outside the lecture hall or do the academic faculty have a duty to students to “enrich their minds with […] knowledge”? As universities are more and more run as businesses and students are paying for their education, is it perhaps time to ask ‘is the customer always right?’