In that sweet old melodrama, The Corn Is Green, Bette Davis plays a teacher who steers a Welshman bound for the coal mines to university instead. If nothing else, watch it for the second lustiest rendition of “Men of Harlech” on screen, after Zulu.
What dates the picture, besides Bette’s unpersuasive fat suit, is that higher education is spoken of throughout as a remote and impenetrable exotica, which I suppose it was in 1895 (when the film is set) or even 1945 (when the film was made). The subsequent expansion of universities is about as civilising a thing as western societies have done since the war.
It might also be what brings them down. Polls have suggested for a while that education is more or less the best predictor of one’s openness to populism. Voters without a degree favoured Donald Trump over Kamala Harris by 14 points. Among postgraduates, she won by a scarcely believable 32 points. There was a similar pattern with Brexit. As the university year begins, it is timely to explain why.