Last week the British university system offered a record number of places. That sounds like good news — but do we really need more people to go to university? For that matter, does the world need more universities?

The answer feels like it should be yes. Education is good, is it not? But everything has a cost. Education takes time. We could insist that everyone study full-time until the age of 45 but that would surely be too much. And if that’s too much, perhaps half the population studying until they’re 21 is also too much. As for universities, they consume financial and intellectual resources — perhaps those resources might be better spent elsewhere.

My own personal bias is strongly in favour both of going to university, and of simply having universities around. Since the main skill I learnt at university was to write about economics, and I use that skill every day of my professional life, even an abstract education seems practical to me.