We must resist the drift toward becoming a service industry for labour markets alone.

By Henry Taylor-Toone, Chief Finance and Operations Officer at Trafford & Stockport College Group

As financial pressures continue to attack colleges, the temptation to adopt the cost-cutting, return-focused logic of private industry is growing. But importing this model into FE risks undermining everything colleges are supposed to stand for.

Private industry prioritises efficiency, profit and short-term results. In education, that often translates into a narrow focus on high-wage outcomes, dropping subjects that don’t directly serve narrowly determined skills priorities, and treating students as consumers. It’s a logic that aligns neatly with decades of neoliberal ideology—but not with the civic mission of FE.

The Invisible Doctrine by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison argues that neoliberalism has become so embedded in our systems that we rarely see it anymore. It assumes the market always knows best and that this is the natural order of things, never to be altered. It reshapes public services into businesses, and citizens into customers.

This ideology is deeply rooted in the work of Friedrich Hayek, whose fear of central planning helped fuel the dismantling of public institutions in favour of market-based solutions over the last 40-plus years. Despite the initial economic growth and prosperity of the 1980s/1990s it ultimately hasn’t led to greater freedom but rather concentrated power in financial elites and undermined democratic engagement.

In contrast, John Maynard Keynes offered a vision of society where the state and market coexisted in balance. Keynes recognised that markets alone could not deliver public value. Investment in education, for Keynes, was not a cost—it was a stabiliser, a driver of long-term social cohesion and shared prosperity.

I am not advocating for a full return to the Keynesian economics that was successful in the mid-20^th Century - but I do propose that Keynesian principles can help guide our approach in FE today.

Colleges are being pushed to justify their existence based on labour market outcomes. Economic relevance matters, of course—but it cannot be the sole measure of a curriculum’s worth. A healthy, functioning society needs more than job-ready individuals; it needs thoughtful, engaged citizens.

Subjects like the creative arts, humanities, and community education are often first on the chopping block when funding is tight. They’re dismissed as low value because they don’t feed directly into immediate economic return. But they do something equally vital: they build connection, confidence, expression, and civic understanding.

Colleges must resist the drift toward becoming a service industry for local labour markets alone. That doesn’t mean ignoring skills gaps or employer needs—but it does mean remembering that education is also about human development, community connection, and democratic engagement.

We need funding systems that recognise the long-term social value of education, not just its short-term economic utility. This means protecting “low return” courses that serve community cohesion. It means embedding civic education, critical thinking, and inclusive dialogue into the curriculum.

Colleges are more than workforce pipelines. They are civic anchors. In a world that’s increasingly polarised and individualistic, colleges can model cooperation, inclusion, and public responsibility. Offering belonging, not just.

Let’s be clear: if we continue to treat education as a commodity, we will erode its public value—and the communities it serves.

Now is the time to reassert a bold vision for further education: one that draws on Keynesian insight, resists neoliberal drift, and remains rooted in public purpose.

There is reason to be hopeful about the direction of post-16 education. The emerging Skills Strategy signals a meaningful shift away from the neoliberal legacy of competition, towards a more collaborative and coordinated approach. For colleges, this represents an exciting opportunity where we can stop competing against one another for survival and build on the rich history of collaboration that already defines so much of our sector.

The creation of Skills England is another promising step. Its goal to bring coherence to a fragmented skills landscape is welcome, especially if it helps counter the narrow, market-driven approach that has shaped the system in recent years. However, we must remain cautious. There is a risk that the focus becomes overly fixated on plugging skills shortages, rather than creating a skills ecosystem that supports broader social goals including civic engagement and social cohesion.

So, what more could be done to embed those values into the heart of the system?

• A longer-term funding model that gives colleges the stability to invest in a broad, balanced curriculum that values cultural capital and social mobility alongside economic return.
• Dedicated investment in enrichment and extracurricular activity, so that these become central to the learner experience rather than peripheral.
• Targeted support for community engagement, particularly in areas where disenfranchisement is high and populist narratives are taking hold. Colleges are uniquely placed to act as civic anchors, but we need the tools and backing to play that role fully.

The future of skills education must be about more than labour market alignment. It must also be about strengthening the fabric of our society and colleges are ready to lead that mission.