Should The More Highly Educated Get More Votes? Education, Voting and Representation

ABSTRACT

This article examines the relation between education, voting and representation, and, in particular, the argument that more highly educated people should have more votes, as they should be better at judging important political decisions. In the past this issue attracted the attention of great thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Newman and Mill. In the UK there is also a practical precedent, rarely recalled today, where for centuries university graduates had their own representatives in Parliament. There are also some interesting contemporary arguments on the topic put forward in favour of an epistocracy (as some call it) by social scientists, but not educators. It seems that most educators would not now dare to suggest that the more highly educated might be given more votes, largely on the grounds of equity.

Keywords:

• epistocracy
• equity
• democracy
• higher education
• university representation
• votes

1. Introduction

This article re-examines an issue which has attracted little attention in educational circles in recent years: the relation between education, voting and representation. To organise the discussion, it focuses in particular on the question ‘should the more highly educated get more votes?’ It is accepted, however, that this question is inevitably bound up with others; concerning, for example, the selection of representatives to vote for, and who amongst them gets to govern.

The argument in favour of granting the more highly educated more votes, in essence, is that the more highly educated an individual is, the better able they should be to understand and evaluate the proposals of different politicians and parties, and hence come to the most sensible or appropriate voting decisions. Giving the more highly educated more votes, the argument goes, will most likely, therefore, lead to the best overall political decisions.

However, and perhaps because it has attracted little recent attention – at least in educational circles – this may seem an odd, anti-democratic, even dangerous, question to ask. The ideology of one-person, one-vote is so ingrained in contemporary, western, democratic societies – where the long campaigns to extend the right to vote to women, the working classes and ethnic minorities are a hallowed part of our history – that the very idea of a different or modified system is likely to be dismissed out of hand.

Yet it is worth re-visiting this question, for at least three main reasons. First, the relation between education, voting and representation is an old question, which has attracted the attention in the past of great thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Newman and Mill, amongst others. Second, in the UK (and some other countries) there is a practical precedent, rarely recalled today, where for centuries the universities (or, rather, their graduates) had their own representatives in Parliament in addition to their constituency vote. Third, there are also interesting contemporary arguments on the topic put forward by political and other social scientists, which have not received due attention in education and deserve to.

This article will, therefore, offer a re-assessment. The first part of the article will be organised in the tripartite structure suggested in the previous paragraph, considering historical arguments, the experience of university representation in the UK, and contemporary arguments. The article will then go on to consider the feasibility and implications of giving the more highly educated more votes.

2. Historical Arguments

Plato, Aristotle, Newman and Mill addressed the issue of the relationship between education, voting and representation in their different ways in the fourth century BC and the nineteenth century AD, with the latter pair aware of and influenced by the arguments of the former. There have, of course, been many others who have contributed to this debate over the years, but these four have been chosen as particularly influential and exemplary.

In The Republic (c. 375 BC; 2007 edition), Plato argued for giving everyone the highest education they could benefit from, while putting the most highly educated, the so-called philosopher rulers, by rotation, in charge of the overall direction of society. In this ideal society, initial education, for all members of the community (including women but excluding slaves and some others) lasted until the age of 20. From the age of 20 onwards, education then focused on the development of the philosopher rulers, with those who were not achieving what was required excluded over time.

Plato’s idealistic plans were a response to his disgust with Athenian (supposedly democratic) politics at the time, which was characterised by corruption and violence. However, rather than giving more votes to the more highly educated, or restricting the vote to those with a certain level of education, his ideas went further, handing over responsibility for the overall running of society to the most highly educated of all.

Aristotle studied for 20 years at Plato’s Academy in Athens and was clearly influenced by his ideas. Thus, in The Politics (c. 335 to 323 BC; 1981 edition), he argues that ‘all must share alike in the business of ruling and being ruled by turns’ (p. 432) and defines a citizen in terms of ‘his participation in giving judgement and in holding office’ (p. 169), noting that this definition is ‘best applied in a democracy’ (p. 170).

For Aristotle, then, the ideal society was one in which all (free male) citizens – who had, as in Plato’s society, experienced an extensive and broad education – not only directly participated in government through voting on proposals, but also took their turn in holding government offices. While clearly meant not just for a democracy, but a small-scale democracy (such as the then Athenian city state), these ideas of a well-educated and politically engaged citizenship were well received by many intellectuals in nineteenth century Britain (and elsewhere), including Newman and Mill.

John Henry Newman’s The Idea of a University was first published in 1852 (1976 edition). A former Oxford don, he was involved at the time with attempts to establish a Catholic university in Dublin (and was also clearly irritated by the contemporary development of the University of London: see Bell and Tight, 1993). In his conception of the university, what mattered was the development of the minds of the young gentlemen (as women and the lower social classes were excluded at the time) who would attend it.

Newman’s concern was with the continuance of an educated elite, an elite which would – somewhat akin to Plato’s philosopher rulers – run all aspects of society, not just government. He was not alone amongst the intellectuals of his time in supporting the development of a secular intellectual elite, something which Knights (1978) referred to as the clerisy, ‘intellectuals as a distinct and socially beneficial group’ (p. 1; see also Kent, 1978).

John Stuart Mill was also identified by Knights (1978) as an advocate of the clerisy, along with Coleridge, Carlyle, Arnold and others. His Considerations on Representative Government was first published in 1861 (2018 edition). Like Plato, he clearly had a poor opinion of contemporary politics and politicians, though in his case this was because of their perceived mediocrity. He linked this state of affairs to eligibility for voting, arguing that many voters lacked the necessary education to determine who to vote for: ‘I regard it as wholly inadmissible that any person should participate in the suffrage without being able to read, write, and, I will add, perform the common operations of arithmetic’ (p. 55).

Mill then outlined a system which linked the vote to level of ‘mental superiority’ and/or education, with two or more votes given to those judged to have higher levels of these qualities. University graduates, a tiny minority of the population at the time Mill was writing, were included, along with those working in the more demanding professions, many of whom, if not graduates, would have had what we would now consider a graduate-level training.

Curiously, however, Mill seemed unaware that such a system – albeit not as fully developed as he might have wished and involving votes for additional Members of Parliament (MPs) rather than the additional votes for existing MPs implied by Mill’s argument – was in operation in his own country, the UK, at the time that he was writing. This system will now be outlined.

3. University Representation in the UK

The idea of university representation, that established universities should send their own MPs (who came to be voted for by their graduates) to Parliament, was initiated in the UK in 1603 and lasted for nearly three and a half centuries until it was abolished (outside of the island of Ireland) in 1950:

The special privilege of representation in the Westminster parliament was conferred on the English universities of Oxford and Cambridge in 1604. The grant was part of James 1’s bounty on his accession: each university was to send two burgesses to the first parliament of the reign and subsequent assemblies. With the foundation of other universities in England and Wales in the later modern period, the right to return their own members of parliament was extended in turn to every institution enjoying full university status, until the separate franchise for graduates was abolished by the post-war Labour Government in the Representation of the People Act of 1948. (Roberts, 2006, pp. 35–36; see also Rex, 1946)

As with other aspects of British politics and organisation, this practice was taken up in some other administrations, both in the then British Empire and beyond: ‘Such places were Ireland, Scotland, India, and colonial Virginia – and possibly Spain and Sicily’ (Rex, 1954, p. 11). The most recent comprehensive study of university representation, by Meisel (2011), does not mention Spain, but notes other examples in Australia, Canada and Malta, and that practice in India extended to the legislatures in what became Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma/Myanmar.

As the British university system expanded during the nineteenth century, so did the number of university MPs elected to Parliament:

Throughout the 19th century, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge each elected two MPs. From 1832 onwards, the University of Dublin also elected two. From 1868, the Scottish universities elected two more MPs between them and the University of London was granted a single member of its own. These seven MPs never amounted to a large block of members, but it did mean that the interests of the universities, their teachers, and their graduates were – in theory, at least – directly represented in parliament. (Whyte, 2018, pp. 129–130)

By the University of Dublin Whyte means Trinity College Dublin, which had returned two representatives to the Irish Parliament from 1613. It then continued to send two MPs to Westminster until 1922, when the secession of Ireland from the UK in 1920 led to their transfer back to the Irish Parliament. The two Scottish university MPs were split between one for Edinburgh and St Andrews and one for Glasgow and Aberdeen; until 1918 when the Scottish representation was expanded to three MPs for a single constituency. In 1918 the other English universities (Birmingham, Bristol, Durham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield, and later Reading) were also granted two MPs between them, while the University of Wales, the National University of Ireland (albeit briefly) and Queen’s University Belfast received one each (Humberstone, 1951).

University seats were amongst the more stable, and many MPs represented their universities continuously for decades. These seats also attracted some notable individuals as MPs, among them leading scientists and politicians, including Prime Ministers: for example, Newton, Pitt (the younger), Palmerston, Peel, Gladstone and Playfair (see Meisel, 2011, Appendix 3).

By the time they were abolished, in 1948 (coming into effect at the next general election in 1950), 12 of the then total 640 seats in the House of Commons were held by university MPs. They were not, however, equally distributed amongst the growing graduate body:

There are about 218,000 names on the electoral roles of the universities. How many persons there are is not accurately known, for some are graduates of more than one university and some are dead. An elector with a vote in more than one university constituency can only vote in one. The largest constituency is the Scottish universities with three members and 63,000 electors. The combined English heads the list of two-member divisions with 43,000 electors, followed by Cambridge with 42,000 and Oxford with 29,000. London with one member has 23,000 electors, Wales 12,000, and Belfast 5,000. (McCallum and Readman, 1947, p. 220)

The existence of university MPs was not wholly accepted by politicians, particularly as the number of universities, and thus the number of their MPs, expanded. There were parliamentary debates on the abolition of university representation in 1885, 1912, 1931, 1935, 1944 and, successfully, in 1948. By the mid-twentieth century, when the general voting franchise had been extended to include all adults, the principle of university representation was a matter of considerable debate, with strong arguments on both sides.

Thus, McCallum and Readman (1947) regarded university representation as a ‘peculiarity’:

The British House of Commons differs from all similar legislative bodies, except that of Eire, in containing representatives of the universities of the nation. This is, abstractly considered, a form of functional representation and might be considered logically to lead to representation of other professional bodies. It is, however, a peculiarity and an exception to the rule that the House of Commons is devised to represent the populace in general. (p. 214)

McCallum and Readman went on to note that ‘University graduates have tended in the past to come from the more affluent sections of the community, or if not, to move towards greater affluence by the exercise of their professions’ (p. 215), so were arguably less in need of additional representation.

Yet, there were still, even immediately after its abolition, those who were prepared to argue the merits of university representation, some indeed suggesting its extension. For example, Humberstone, an educationalist, argued that:

First, guild representation is a principle that, so far from being obsolete, should be extended as congruous with new industrial and professional conditions and as offering a justifiable supplement to local representation, patently imperfect in reflecting political opinion. Second, certain subjects, ripe for legislation and cutting across party politics, can be sponsored by independent members … Third … Should not a group of members be ‘present’ in the House of Commons specifically qualified by long study and experience to advise on such questions as education, economics, scientific research … Fourth, if great industries such as mining can ensure virtual representation through the accident of residential segregation, it is reasonable that the professional classes whose work demands even distribution among the population should be represented by the proved method of University constituencies. (Humberstone, 1951, pp. 70–71)

Humberstone’s argument that the professional classes needed their own MPs to give them a voice, because they were evenly distributed across the country (unlike coal miners), would be difficult to justify today. The advent of mass higher education participation has meant that, in any constituency with a university in it, the student and staff vote has a major impact (Tight, 2009). In addition, many current MPs formerly worked in higher education, while the vast majority of MPs are now graduates (Sutton Trust, 2019; Tight, 2012), and numerous senior academics and academic managers have become members of the House of Lords.

Even after abolition in 1950, the idea of special representation for the universities did not die. Its re-introduction formed part of the Conservative Party’s manifesto in the 1950 and 1951 elections, though it was not acted upon when they won the 1951 election. As late as 1982, a private member’s bill introduced by Lord Cranborne sought, unsuccessfully, to re-instate university representation.

The longest hangover, curiously enough, has been on the island of Ireland. Queen’s University Belfast continued to elect four members of the Northern Ireland assembly at Stormont until 1969. South of the border in the Republic of Ireland, the two oldest universities still have six elected seats in the upper house, the Seanad Éireann (Meisel, 2011).

On the basis of his detailed study, Meisel comes to a robustly positive evaluation of the lasting impact of university representation: ‘University representation, though generally recognized (if at all) as a quaint oddity, was in fact an institution of real significance within, and a link between, the broader frameworks of politics and education, both in Britain and across the empire’ (p. 138). As the evidence presented confirms, university representation was certainly a long-lasting practice within the (so-called) British Isles, and a practice which had an influence well beyond those islands in the British empire and beyond. It also has resonance in contemporary debates about education, voting and representation.

4. Contemporary Arguments

The idea that the more highly educated should get more votes – or even, as with Plato and Aristotle, that the most highly educated should take turns to rule – has not gone away. It still crops up in discussions by economists, philosophers, political scientists and sociologists, for example, and notably in the United States, but seemingly not so commonly amongst educationalists. My suspicion is that this is because this idea seems to go against the contemporary commitment amongst educators to overcoming disadvantage and levelling up opportunities, often summarised in the ideas of widening participation, equity and social justice.

One contemporary thinker who has addressed this topic is Estlund (2008), a philosopher, who poses the question ‘Why not an epistocracy of the educated?’, by which he means rule by the better educated or more intelligent:

It is natural to think that the wise ought to rule, and yet it is now universally denied … a decent education, including, say, some knowledge of politics, history, economics, and so forth, as well as close experience with others from diverse backgrounds must be admitted to improve the ability to rule wisely … why shouldn’t there be general agreement … that citizens with such an education should have more votes than others? (p. 206)

Here the ideas of rule by the most highly educated and more votes for the more highly educated are closely linked together.

Estlund argues that ‘epistocracy of the educated is probably the most formidable proposal of a form of epistocracy that makes claims of political expertise that cannot be reasonably denied’ (p. 222). Yet, he still denies it because of the ‘democratic objection’, concluding that:

Even though we must all grant that a better education (somehow conceived) improves the ability to rule wisely, it is not unreasonable or disqualified to suspect that there will be other biasing features of the educated group, features … which do more epistemic harm than education does good. (p. 222)

While he does not specify what these ‘biasing features’ might be, one may speculate that, like all select groups, the highly educated could display a tendency to privilege their own interests, and ignore or downplay the experience, priorities and interests of the rest of the population; in their case, the less highly educated (something which Plato did not expect from his philosopher-rulers).

There is a link here to the related idea of epistemic injustice, ‘a wrong done to somebody in their capacity as a knower’ (Fricker, 2007, p. 1), of which two main kinds may be identified:

Testimonial injustice occurs when prejudice causes a hearer to give a deflated level of credibility to a speaker’s word; hermeneutical injustice occurs at a prior stage, when a gap in collective interpretive resources puts someone at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to making sense of their social experiences. (Fricker, 2007)

Epistemic injustices will be most commonly experienced, of course, by the less highly educated.

Caplan (2007), an economist, addresses the problems with democracy from a different direction, arguing that contemporary democracy does not work well because most voters are irrational:

democracy fails because it does what voters want … An irrational voter does not hurt only himself [sic]. He also hurts everyone who is, as a result of his irrationality, more likely to live under misguided policies. Since most of the cost of voter irrationality is external – paid for by other people, why not indulge? If enough voters think this way, socially injurious policies win by popular demand. (p. 3; emphasis in original)

If Caplan’s analysis was taken seriously, one of the key requirements for voting would be – as with Estlund – a certain level of economic literacy, as economics underpins so much current government policy, in higher education as well as other areas. This requirement might, of course, deny the vote to many graduates, who, though highly educated, may have taken a specialised degree in a discipline unrelated to economics; or it might conceivably lead to the re-structuring of degree provision, so that all degrees contained an element of general education (in economics, politics and other subjects).

Brennan, who works in a business school, has become a prolific author on the topic and an advocate of the epistocracy; though he recognises that, whilst this might be a better system than democracy, it is still not perfect:

The practice of unrestricted universal suffrage is unjust. Citizens have a right that any political power held over them should be exercised by competent people in a competent way. Universal suffrage violates this right. To satisfy this right, universal suffrage in most cases must be replaced by a moderate epistocracy, in which suffrage is restricted to citizens of sufficient political competence. Epistocracy itself seems to fall foul of the qualified acceptability requirement, that political power must be distributed in ways against which there are no qualified objections. However, it is less intrinsically unjust than democracy with universal suffrage, and probably produces more just outcomes. Thus epistocracy is more just than democracy, even if not perfectly just. (2011, p. 700)

With the British public voting for Brexit in 2016, and the American public for Donald Trump as president later in the same year, Brennan’s analysis attracted wider and more popular attention (Brennan, 2016, 2018). It has combined with other reservations on the workings of democracy in practice – e.g., Achen and Bartels (2016), Somin (2016) – to produce a growing academic critique of democracy.

Mulligan has gone so far as to suggest a method by which a voter’s suitability to vote might be estimated, so that those deemed unsuitable might be removed from the franchise:

it is possible to estimate a voter’s competence – that is, estimate the probability that he [sic] will choose, now, correctly – by comparing his voting record (the candidates, policies, etc. he selected in elections past) to the voting records of other citizens. Solely from this information, and without any objective knowledge of which past candidates, policies, etc. were the ‘correct’ ones, we can determine, for any individual voter and to high precision, how likely he is to choose correctly this time around. (2018, p. 296)

This does assume, however, that there are such things as correct decisions and that we will be able to agree on what these are.

There have, of course, been criticisms of Brennan’s and Estlund’s positions (e.g., Gunn, 2019; Lippert-Rasmussen, 2012; Umbers, 2019). Thus, Gunn (2019) argues that the epistocrats who would retain the vote (or get additional votes) might be neither knowledgeable nor reliable:

Brennan fails to explain why we should think that these putative experts are sufficiently knowledgeable to avoid making errors as damaging as those made by voters. Given the strong link between political knowledge and ideological dogmatism, as well as the tendency of social scientists to disagree with one another, the case for epistocracy is deeply implausible, at best. (p. 26)

None of these counter-critiques appear, however, to have struck the killer blow, so the debate over the merits of epistocracy versus democracy continues. On the one hand, the proponents of epistocracy argue that this would lead to a better choice of MPs and better political decisions, while the defenders of democracy claim it is more equitable and less elitist, and is more preferable form of government despite its limitations.

What is lacking, the advocates of epistocracy claim – none of whom appear aware of the experience of university representation in the UK and beyond – is a full-scale, contemporary, practical demonstration.

5. Discussion

Having examined some of the historical and contemporary literature on the relationship between educational achievement, political influence and power, and drawn particular attention to the British and imperial experience of university representation, we may return to the question posed by this article: ‘should the more highly educated get more votes?’ We may also pose two subsidiary or related questions: how would it work and what difference(s) would it make?

Putting the received contemporary wisdom of ‘one person, one vote’ to the side for a while, why might it be advantageous – to society as a whole – to give the more highly educated more votes? To reiterate, the basic argument is that more highly educated people should be better able to appreciate the details of any particular issue, understand the pros and cons of alternative ways forward, and thus reach – and/or help others to reach – better decisions.

Against this it might immediately be said that the more highly educated tend to have a particular worldview, one which tends to overlook and perhaps disparage the worldviews of the less highly educated. Yet this may be countered by the argument that the worldview of the more highly educated is superior or preferable – indeed, aspirational – to that of the less highly educated, based as it is on a broader and more thorough appreciation of the issues. We are, though, in dangerous territory here, as such an argument could be used to empower an elite group and set of views – i.e., this is the way you should think – while disempowering others.

Favouring the worldview of the more highly educated supports the arguments for meritocracy and credentialism, the idea that individuals rise by their demonstrated talents in an open society and economy (a notion famously satirised by Young in 1958). It may be objected, of course, that nothing like a perfect meritocracy has ever existed, so upward mobility determined by merit has only ever operated in a somewhat constrained fashion, with other factors, such as social background and networks, continuing to play a major role (Brighouse, 2022). Then there is the criticism that a meritocratic approach would not only be profoundly undemocratic but also ignores the common good:

The meritocratic conviction that people deserve whatever riches the market bestows on their talents makes solidarity an almost impossible project. For why do the successful owe anything to the less-advantaged members of society? The answer to this question depends on recognizing that, for all our striving, we are not self-made and self-sufficient; finding ourselves in a society that prizes our talents is our good fortune, not our due. (Sandel, 2021, p. 227)

Whatever changes are considered, the interests and concerns of the less highly educated should not, therefore, be ignored or downplayed.

Another argument in favour of more votes for the more highly educated is that it would act as an additional incentive – albeit, perhaps, not a huge one – to engage in higher education, and as a reward for successfully completing one’s studies. Graduates could, for instance, pick up an additional vote along with their degree certificates. This would help in the cultivation of expertise in all disciplines and subjects, which would benefit the economy and society. In other words, the more highly educated a society as a whole, the more successful it is likely to be at a time of increasing global competition; which is, of course, one of the basic arguments for supporting higher education (embodied in the much discussed theories of human and social capital: Tight, 2018).

And, if educational opportunities were genuinely open to all on an equal basis (which we would have to agree is a very big ‘if’), this would change the characteristics of the elite in society and make them more likely to bear the interests of all in mind in reaching decisions: ‘if we practice integration in our educational institutions to the extent required to produce a qualified elite, the resulting distribution of educational opportunity will redound to the benefit of all and provide no grounds for complaint on the part of the disadvantaged, even if some receive more investments in their education than others’ (Anderson, 2007, p. 662). Such tendencies would likely be strengthened by the greater development of citizenship education at all levels in the system (Annette, 2005).

Then there is the notion of guild representation discussed by Humberstone (1951). The objection might be raised that, in addition to graduates, other ‘guilds’ would also merit representation (as they are currently in Ireland’s upper house; and, at least in the case of the Church of England, in the UK’s upper house, the House of Lords); though, with mass participation in higher education, most of these – e.g., accountants, doctors, engineers, lawyers, nurses, teachers – would arguably be represented through the graduate voice, as well as by politicians who had previously been accountants, doctors, etc.

In purely practical terms, there is the issue of how an epistocracy would operate. There are obviously many variants possible. Possibly the simplest way would be to give all graduates an extra vote in their existing constituencies, so that all adults got one vote but a substantial minority got two.

It is easy to imagine variants to this approach, adopting Mill’s idea of a ‘plurality of votes’ or Brennan’s of a ‘moderate’ epistocracy (and also, therefore, allowing for the possibility of an ‘extreme’ one). For example, all adults might get one vote, with those who satisfactorily completed secondary school, gained a degree and earned a doctorate getting two, three and four votes respectively.

Or, bearing in mind the current Irish practice, in democracies with bicameral systems (i.e., lower and upper houses of Parliament) in which both chambers of the legislature are elected directly, additional votes for the more highly educated could be confined to votes for upper house elections. Their influence could then be used to amend and modify the legislation already passed by the lower house.

There is, however, what could be seen as an underlying problem with all of these proposals; namely that, in most representative democracies, the electorate – whether democratic or epistocratic – votes for a representative, who is normally allied to a particular political party and its manifesto of proposed policies. There is some distance, therefore, between the electorate and the political decisions taken, which the occasional referendum does little to diminish (though Brexit might be seen as a notable exception to this).

Perhaps, then, the way in which university representation worked in the UK might be a more satisfactory model to follow. In this way, the more highly educated who were granted more votes would use these additional votes to elect additional MPs. In other words, they would be given not just more votes but more MPs. It would be easier, in such a system, for the epistocrats to not only exert more influence on how their representatives voted, but also to lobby them to introduce specific policies to their liking.

A cautionary note needs to be added here, which has to do with whether university MPs are seen as representing university graduates or the universities themselves. Contemporary universities, in the UK as in many other countries, are now large employers with a diverse range of interests. They are already skilled political lobbyists, particularly at national level when operating together with other universities – in their ‘mission groups’ – with shared interests. University MPs would likely, therefore, come under a good deal of pressure from the universities as well as from those, their graduates, who elected them.

We may, though, question whether the replacement of democracy with epistocracy would make much, if any, difference to politics and society more generally. After all, there is little evidence that university representation in the UK made much general impact on policy – i.e., apart from that on policy directly affecting the universities, a relatively minor element over the period concerned – over the three and a half centuries during which it was in place (Meisel, 2011). Yet, given that university representation only accounted for 12 out of 640 MPs (or less than two percent) at the time it was abolished, there was strictly limited scope for the university MPs to act as a block to influence policy.

With the massification of higher education over the post-war period, however, university MPs (if that was the way that the epistocracy worked) would be much greater in number. Graduates currently make up over 40% of the UK population (www.ons.gov.uk), for example, and this proportion is rising. A House of Commons with 40% more MPs who might be expected to make common cause on certain policies (notably, of course, on higher education and student funding, but also, perhaps, on wider educational, social and economic issues) would be a very different proposition from the one we have now. Much would depend, however, on whether university MPs represented existing political parties, which would limit their ability to argue against those parties’ policies.

Even if the epistocracy functioned through the existing system of representation, with the more highly educated having more votes in their geographical constituencies and thus a greater influence on which MPs got elected, one would expect those MPs to take the views of their more highly educated constituents more seriously (something which they probably already do to some extent, as such constituents are likely better at and more persistent in lobbying their MPs). So, we might still expect an impact, albeit less direct, on MPs’ voting and policy views.

Yet, aside from, presumably, favouring policies that supported education, and higher education in particular, we don’t really know how an epistocracy might impact upon politics and society in general. In the past, university representatives in the UK tended to be on the right wing of politics (Meisel, 2011, p. 73); graduates, after all, were part of the elite in society.

Would it be so very different if an expanded epistocracy were in place today? While contemporary universities and colleges might be portrayed as hotbeds of left-wing ideology by right-wing politicians and the mass media when it suits them, the reality is rather more measured. And, when they leave university or college for work, present day graduates tend to occupy (or create) relatively well-paid employment, so may well be just as concerned as their historical predecessors with protecting their positions.

Of course, there are other factors to bear in mind in speculating on the behaviour of the epistocracy when we have a mass system of higher education. The widening of participation in higher education has resulted in a greater number of graduates ending up, at least temporarily, in jobs which are not ‘graduate-level’. Their concerns will be rather different from those of the ‘high-flyers’ (Roth, 2019).

Graduates are also not evenly distributed geographically across countries, but tend to concentrate in those areas where the economy is most vibrant: e.g., in the UK, in London and the South-East, and, to a lesser extent, in dynamic cities such as Manchester and Edinburgh, as well as in major university cities such as Bristol and Leeds. So, their influence, in local as much as national government, would be concentrated there.

All in all, therefore, it is very difficult to gauge what the effect of an epistocracy might be, or whether it would be beneficial to the population as a whole as opposed to the epistocrats themselves. When the latter point is under consideration, of course, the key issue is who makes the judgement?

There is a trade-off here between representation, influence and results. Had epistocracies been in existence, with the large proportions of graduates in the populations of developed countries having more votes, we might have avoided, for example, the decisions in favour of Brexit and Trump, which have been portrayed by some as irrational, divisive and destructive. An epistocracy might also have been able to introduce policies which would genuinely do something to ‘level up’ inequalities in society (and further widen participation in higher education, and thus representation, in the future). But all of this does rest on the (untested) assumption that the more highly educated do know better and would wish to act in the best interests of all (however we measure that).

6. Conclusion

This article has posed the question ‘should the more highly educated get more votes’? It has set out the historical and contemporary arguments in favour of such a development, considered what the history of university representation in the UK suggests about its’ practicality, and outlined some of the objections.

Clearly, while there are strong arguments for giving the more highly educated more votes, there are also good reasons why sticking with the status quo might be a safer option. In the UK, for example, it is hard to see either of the major political parties adopting and successfully championing a policy of more votes for the more highly educated during an election campaign. They would likely be derided as undemocratic and pandering to the university vote. Getting such a policy accepted without including it in an election manifesto would likely be impossible.

In these circumstances, perhaps the most productive direction to move in would be towards ensuring that those who do have the vote are better educated in how to use it (Gutmann and Ben-Porath, 2015). That, of course, is by no means a straightforward or uncontested idea either, particularly given the ready availability of so much information, some of it of dubious quality.

It would also be healthy for contemporary educationalists to take more interest in the links between education, voting and representation, even – or perhaps especially – when arguments like those presented in this article seem anathema to them.

7. Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.