Teachers have argued for centuries about whether the primary function of education is incarceration or self-development. Oxbridge's unique achievement has been to combine the worst aspects of both models.
The do-it-yourself degree may have been the perfect system for the intellectual development of Newton, Wordsworth and Asquith, but the complete absence of regulation, training and external supervision of lecturing, tutoring or student welfare today seems like self-development gone mad. For the lucky few who are very bright, self-assured and provided with a decent tutor, the system continues to work miracles.
But far too many students are left all at sea. What is more, the natural "why am I here?" instinct of newly arrived kids who feel that everyone else is an embryonic Wittgenstein is accentuated by the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the eight-week, 16-essay term (to say nothing of relationship crises, student activities or even a social life). And their cries for help tend to fall on deaf ears, since those who have graduated through Oxbridge (probably after public school) to run the system become signed up to the "what-does-not-kill-me-makes-me-stronger" school of hard knocks. I remember many of my contemporaries at Cambridge struggling to keep up. Some developed clinical depression, others eating disorders, and a few even dropped out. Unfortunately the only things capable of rousing the college authorities from their complacency were the nuclear threats of suicide or a third-class degree.
Paradoxically, this laissez-faire approach to education and welfare is married to a control-freak regulation of the minutiae of everyday life. A short walk through any quad or court confirms the dominance of the teacher-as-prison-guard philosophy. The hermetically sealed colleges are accessible only through a large oak door that is monitored by porters. The regimented meal times, the gowns and the daily visits from "scouts" or "bedders" who report back on anything untoward form the contours of a grim routine. The only escape is permission from a personal tutor for an "exeat" - the Oxbridge equivalent of parole. This penal atmosphere is enhanced by the colleges' fierce opposition to any planning application which might make Oxbridge more fun to live in.
The result is that both Oxford and Cambridge suffer from the same cloying provincial calm that characterised them in the Middle Ages. Students are at first awe-struck by the beauty of the dreaming spires. But eventually they discover that beautiful architecture - like patriotism - is not enough. They wonder when something is actually going to happen and when they will meet someone who is not connected to the university. Unfortunately, most people are still wondering at the end of their degrees. On my first day in Cambridge, I remember rifling through the student supplements trying to discover what the next few years had in store for me. The Independent had a list of the best haunts for every university in Britain: Cream in Liverpool, the Hacienda in Manchester, the Odyssey in Bristol. For Cambridge, the best night out was a trip to London. They were not wrong- unless punting down the Cam or sitting in another student's bedroom is your idea of a good night out. Because of their collegiate structure, neither university even has a central student's union building, so there is no central venue for students to congregate in.
But the litmus test of any organisation is the people who are in it. This is Oxbridge's biggest failing. Though 93 per cent of the country's children are educated in state schools, they make up less than half of Oxbridge students.
Despite the recent rhetoric about "target schools" and "breaking down cultural barriers", the proportion coming from the state sector is actually falling in this supposed age of meritocracy. Colleges defend their admissions policies on the grounds of maintaining academic standards with a floor of 28 points at A-level. This is a peculiarly weak intellectual argument given the crudity of such a measure for gauging a student's potential to benefit from three years of elite education.
Why don't pupils from the state sector get their fair share of places at the educational top table? Part of the answer lies in the admissions procedure. There are no shortage of interview horror stories, and newspapers periodically expose the eccentric behaviour of dons. The random system on which the lifeblood of our elite educational establishments depends is entirely without rhyme, reason or recourse for those on the receiving end.
The very culture of the place deters many able students from putting their names forward in the first place. Recently I was shocked to hear the head of an Oxbridge college explain that recruiting more students from state schools wasn't worth the bother: "Last year two of my state school students attempted suicide. I simply can't expect my staff to deal with blood in the dustbins." Unfortunately, rather than changing the culture and the pressures that lead to such tragedies, Oxbridge clings harder than ever to the things that produce them. While other universities move from trimesters to semesters and develop "reading weeks" in the middle of their terms to ease the pressure, Oxbridge proudly sticks to its eight-week terms. While other universities have moved from exam-based degrees to continuous assessment, the degree you get on many Oxbridge courses is still based entirely on the exams you take in your last five days.
Time after time, Oxbridge confuses atavism with maintaining standards. The conditioned response to any innovation sartorial, gastronomic or academic - is suspicion. And the heavily bureaucratic decision-making processes which allow each college to operate as a private fiefdom mean that, even once the need for change is recognised, it is practically impossible to bring it in across the board.
The real problem is not that colleges do not see themselves as part of their universities; it is that the universities do not see themselves as part of the real world, even though they supply so much of the elite that runs it. Educating our brightest in such a rarefied, ethereal, uncontrolled environment is a peculiarly British gamble.