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This year has seen rising interest in alternative university models, inspired not only by a difficult economy, but also by the rise in tuition fees to up to £9,000 and by the success of Tent City University, which organized lectures, discussions and workshops with anti-capitalist protesters occupying the area around St Paul's in London last winter.

The "free university" is the brainchild of Ali Ghanimi, a Green party activist who has worked in the public sector managing organizational change the idea, she says, is to offer "something for the whole community, regardless of their financial means or previous education. It's a way for people to share common interests and build relationships, That's about building stronger communities."

The desire to make learning more accessible to those without the time or resources to attend a formal course is also prompting many traditional universities to put materials online, and has inspired other online projects, such as the tuition-free University of the People, founded in 2009.

Funding changes in higher education have been encouraging alternative ways of looking at learning for the past couple of years. The Social Science Centre in Lincoln, which welcomed its first nine students this term, was conceived by Mike Neary, dean of teaching and learning at the University of Lincoln, in 2010, as a result of proposals to cut the teaching grant to arts, humanities and social science subjects. It charges no fees, but students and teachers, who meet at locations around Lincoln, are able to pay one hour of their income a month through PayPal. At the end of three years of study, students are promised the equivalent of a higher education degree.

The Free University of Liverpool, which also operates from different locations around its city, offers courses delivered voluntarily by academics and others in culture. It was also a protest against the privatization of higher education. A similar project, the Really Open University, was started around the same time in Leeds.
Organisers of alternative models insist they do not want to threaten existing universities. Both Neary and Lazarus, who teaches international politics and international development at Oxford, Reading and London, point out that they continue to work within the system to change things, and many of those involved in these projects hope they will encourage more people to think of higher education as something potentially open to them.

Tim Huzar, a Phd student in philosophy at Brighton University, who has helped to set up the Free University of Brighton, says the response is also practical. “It’s important to realise an alternative and demonstrate it,” he says. “But it isn’t just a political act. It’s a real service. It gives people access to education and it makes them realise that learning is something they should expect lifelong – not just something you do if you can afford £9,000 when you’re 18.”