Why opportunity should become the new measure of university success

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This blog was kindly authored by Professor Paul M. Marshall, Vice-President (Global Campus) and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Careers & Enterprise) at the University of East London.

The UK higher education sector is currently focused on financial sustainability, international recruitment and public confidence. These debates really matter. But they risk obscuring a more fundamental question.

Are universities still organised for the economy that now exists?

I was reminded of this recently while speaking at New York Tech Week. The audience included founders, investors, employers, policymakers and innovators from both sides of the Atlantic. Discussions ranged from AI and fintech to customer experience and international expansion.

What struck me was that nobody was talking about degrees.

Investors talked about talent.

Founders talked about talent.

Employers talked about talent.

The discussion was not about qualifications. It was about how to attract talented people, develop them, connect them to opportunity and help them adapt in an economy being reshaped by AI and technological change.

Yet much of higher education still behaves as though the degree itself is the end product. We recruit students. We deliver programmes. We award degrees. We celebrate graduation.

Meanwhile, employers recruit globally. Skills requirements evolve continuously. Careers are increasingly non-linear. Innovation happens through networks rather than institutions. The world has changed. Many universities have not changed with it. This matters because the pressures facing the sector are not simply financial. They are strategic.

Universities cannot simply cut their way to long-term sustainability. Nor can they rely indefinitely on recruiting from the same markets using the same models. The institutions that thrive over the next decade will be those that remain indispensable to students, employers and society.

That requires a broader understanding of what universities are for. Historically, universities have provided access to education. Increasingly, they must also help provide access to opportunity. That may sound like a subtle distinction. I believe it is becoming one of the defining challenges facing higher education. For much of their history, universities built campuses and asked students to come to them. Increasingly, I believe the future works the other way around. Universities need to build networks that connect talent, employers, entrepreneurs, investors and opportunity wherever people happen to be.

That is not simply a question of international recruitment. Indeed, I think the sector still talks about internationalisation too often as though recruitment is the objective. It is not. Recruitment is a mechanism. The objective should be building long-term talent, employer and innovation networks that create value for students, employers and society. That is where internationalisation, employability and economic growth increasingly converge.

At the University of East London, this thinking sits behind our Global Campus strategy. Two weeks ago, we launched UEL USA in Miami. The significance of that launch was not the opening of an overseas office. It was the creation of new pathways connecting students, employers, entrepreneurs, investors and innovators across multiple markets. The same principle underpins our partnership with the Tampa Bay Wave in Florida. The lesson is broader than any individual institution. The real opportunity lies in building enduring connections between education, employment, enterprise and investment. Bringing this to life, in a few weeks time, 20 UEL students will embark upon a two month work placement with companies in the Tampa Bay Wave ecosystem. Building a genuine economic and innovation bridge between London and Tampa. 

This shift has important implications for policy and institutional strategy. If opportunity becomes as important as education, employability can no longer be treated as a service students discover in their final year. Entrepreneurship cannot remain a peripheral activity. Alumni engagement cannot be viewed as something that begins after graduation. Instead, universities need to think much more deliberately about how they connect learners to employers, mentors, professional development, enterprise support and lifelong learning opportunities throughout their careers. At UEL, this thinking sits behind CareerVerse, a digital careers and entrepreneurship ecosystem designed to connect students and graduates to opportunities over the long term. The platform itself is not the point. The principle is. In a world increasingly shaped by AI, access to opportunity may become just as important as access to education. That has profound implications for how universities are organised, funded and evaluated. It also changes how we think about outcomes.

Universities should continue to be judged on academic quality, research excellence and student experience. But I believe they should increasingly be judged on the opportunities they help create. Not only for graduates, but for employers, entrepreneurs and communities.

At UEL, our graduates now rank second in the United Kingdom for graduate start-up creation and twentieth nationally for graduate company employment. These outcomes matter because universities should not simply produce graduates who seek opportunity. They should produce founders, innovators, employers and problem-solvers who create opportunity for others. The economic and social impact of those individuals extends far beyond the university itself. If policymakers are serious about productivity, economic growth and social mobility, then higher education policy needs to move beyond a narrow focus on participation and attainment. Those goals remain important. But the next challenge is ensuring that people can translate education into opportunity throughout their lives.

That means encouraging stronger employer partnerships, supporting innovation ecosystems, rewarding entrepreneurial activity and recognising the value of lifelong engagement between universities and learners.

The question is no longer whether universities provide access to education. Most do that reasonably well. The more important question is whether universities can provide access to opportunity. In an economy increasingly shaped by AI, global labour markets and rapid technological change, that may become the defining measure of institutional success. It is also where the future value of higher education will increasingly be found.