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And yet, as he discusses MBA models in the freshly painted splendour of the college’s new London headquarters, you get the feeling that – for his British rivals, at least – the heat is on. “If you look at better institutions round the world, one of the features they have is a high proportion of postgraduate students,” says Slater.An online application system for postgraduates, like the one envisaged, is one of the main tools which could help Britain’s top universities stay in the global league.. We might get a perturbation here – but I don’t believe it will be 40 per cent.”But any reversal in growth will be keenly felt, and makes it essential that any new system minimises costs and allows for efficient operation of the market. And for the research-led universities, there is another issue. Taught MAs are seen as a way of hooking outstanding students into a research career, perhaps through the research-based dissertation required even at the taught stage. Improving the quality of PhD students, and maintaining the supply, while nurturing the best talents as future faculty, are major concerns. “You have to be mindful of what happened in Australia,” says Salter.

“There was a 40 per cent drop in postgraduate-taught applications. Parents, and students, who have just incurred debts to get a first degree, may be less than eager to embark on an MA – especially if they are just looking for a “top-up” or to bide their time. It’s a kind of dumbing down, isn’t it?” She also wonders if the use of the taught MA as a degree top-up is not leading universities down the wrong path, especially as the standard one-year UK model does not fit the European or US systems. But there is a fair wind behind the project, and it may not be solely driven by visions of lucrative expansion.The introduction of top-up fees in England becomes a reality for students in September The knock-on effect to postgraduates could be seismic. Will UCAS tell you all that? I don’t think this is a particularly good idea. Others use an MA as an academic gap year, delaying a tough career decision for another 12 months.”In my experience, MA students tend to be pretty well motivated,” says Professor Susan Bassnett, of Warwick University. “I’m very surprised we need such a system now – it suggests individual motivation is not so strong And I wonder about labelling of courses This can be very arbitrary.

We offer an MA in translation studies, for example, and I know every one of the other courses and they can range from a couple of tutors running an MA for a few students to a fully developed internationally recognised MA course. For 2005, there were 45,000 different courses listed – whereas in 2006 the figure will be 77,000. Professor Howard Green, senior adviser to the vice-chancellor at the University of Staffordshire, says: “This will make postgraduate recruitment a structured marketing exercise, rather than a hit-and-miss free for all. We will begin to be able to match supply and demand.” Such an insight will more than compensate universities for any fee they will expect to pay – probably for each student successfully recruited through the system.The stark benefits for universities have made UCAS’ proposal widely popular.