Arthur C. Clarke, the doyen of the science fiction genre, has never let the more technical elements of his encyclopedic intelligence get in the way of a good witticism. Despite his advancing years, one of his more recent works, 3001: The Final Odyssey, contains this gem, on the subject of university finance: a college dean is touring his campus, speaking to the lecturing staff. On his way through the science building, he is accosted by a group of professors, who complain about the lack of support from the administrators and demanding funds for all the latest equipment.

Angered by their sass, the dean replies: “Why is it that the science department always needs such expensive gear? What can’t you be more like the math department? All they need is a blackboard and a wastepaper basket. In fact, why can’t you be like the philosophy department? They don’t even need the wastepaper basket.”

In a fell swoop, Mr Clarke expresses both the current government’s attitude towards university finance and a perspective on higher education in general which, if it were more widely subscribed to, might resolve the current impasse.

Universities in Scotland are in crisis – a fact which the announcement from Dundee University reported in these pages should finally drive home to the sceptics, particularly those in power at Holyrood.

The SNP is guilty of the same naivety as the dean in Clarke’s gag if it believes that one of the nation’s premier centres of medical research making staff redundant is part of a “period of planned restructuring,” as a Scottish Government spokeswoman told The Journal.

Long-term planning cannot have come into the matter if the £168 million requested from the government by Universities Scotland merely to keep pace with English counterparts was met with a paltry £40 million investment.

Scottish universities will not maintain any reputable status on a shoestring budget – not if their most prestigious professors, such as Edinburgh University’s recently-departed Richard Mackenney, are poached by institutions abroad; not if humanities students in their honours years get four hours contact time a week; not if a lack of funds lead to crumbling facilities and canceled classes.

The formula for success is not rocket science. Edinburgh University received top marks for investment in its medical program in last year’s Guardian universities guide, and continues to enjoy a high ranking for the department.

It received only four marks out of ten for funding of its history department; the program’s ranking has correspondingly dropped.

If tight-fisted funding policies have driven down quality at Scotland’s universities, the situation has hardly been helped by burgeoning sentiment – peddled since 1997 by the current Labour government – that more people need to be crammed into universities. This tactic is clearly not working, highlighted by Scotland’s persistently high university dropout rate, or the difficulties graduates increasingly face in finding work in their subject area due to the falling value of qualifications.

Under no circumstances should a university education ever return to being the preserve of the privileged classes as it once was. Gifted students from all backgrounds should be able to pursue their academic passions whatever their financial status. However, the British government must realise that it cannot currently afford to put as many people through higher education as it would like while maintaining standards at its universities.

Higher education in this country is at a crossroads: society must decide whether university should be for all or only those who truly want and deserve its challenges and benefits. The former requires a radical overhaul of not just university funding but a wholesale improvement of compulsory education not to mention political bravery from government in terms of fiscal reform; the latter, a reappraisal of the role of vocational learning and qualifications.

In 1945, a young RAF radioman whose dream of attending university was put on hold by a lack of funds and the outbreak of World War Two circulated a paper amongst fellow members of the British Interplanetary Society. Its subject was the then-fantastic notion of satellite communications; so accurate was the description of technologies that were eventually developed, that when the first commercial telecoms satellites were launched in the 1970s, their owners had to ask his permission so as to avoid breach of copyright.

Arthur Clarke gave it willingly. He was born into a privileged Home Counties family, and attended a prestigious grammar school, but did not attend university until 1949.