Taylor and Francis Ltd PSP_A_200193. gm 10.1080/136 3100601002977 Perspectives 360-3108 (pri t)/146 -7018 (online) 2 06 & Francis 40 00200 K renSmith k.smith@s u. c.uk Introduction I was motivated to write this paper by reading Peter Scott’s reflections on mass higher education (Scott 2005). His description chimes with the perspectives of staff I interviewed during a project investigating the forms of support available for first-year students at a number of universities in the UK. Although the project, which was commissioned by the Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics (part of Higher Education Academy), asked staff specifically about their experiences of supporting students, the interviews provided these staff with the time and space to reflect more generally on their experiences of working within a mass education system. The first phases of the research, which focused on their support mechanisms, have been reported elsewhere (Smith and Todd 2005a, Smith and Todd 2005b). Here, I want to explore in more detail the experience of the HE system they described, a system of conflict and contradiction, thus providing the perspective of teaching staff on the nature of mass higher education in the UK. As Douglass notes (2005:9), attempts to increase participation in UK tertiary education have been extremely successful, participation rates have quite simply ‘sky rocketed’. However, as Douglass goes on, these successes have come at a cost: namely increased staff:student ratios, and reduced autonomy. Focusing on the university as a ‘policy lever for achieving greater competitiveness within a globalising context of “knowledge economies” and “information societies” ‘(Marton 2005: 695) has led to governments’ tightening their controls over universities, thus impacting on staff autonomy. At the same time funding per student has fallen by thirtysix per cent between 1989 and 1997, and staff:student ratios have increased from 1:10 in 1983 to 1:18 in 2000 (DfES 2003: 4 and 15).