Jennie Lee started Open University, all those decades ago. It seems most people are a little unwilling to apply their brains to thinking outside a tramline. Degrees and apprenticeships used to be full time and at a specific location, in the days of Queen Victoria. Technology, and Covid, has changed all that. A lot of study can and should be on-line and at home and part time to fit around other matters.
A lot of practical learning can and should be prefaced with the equivalent of work experience schemes, otherwise known as Sit By Nellie, otherwise known as shadowing, otherwise known as internship, work trials, or assisting .
Arguably, almost nobody should sit full time in a desk to age 18, then sit full time in a campus or a workplace. Work introduction could allow people a glimpse of worlds they never thought of, and could give them the transferable skills of turning up on time, reliably, figuring how to deal with or dodge the politics and petty bullying inevitable in any place where someone has power, presenting themselves as if ready for work, managing the transport to get there.
Increasingly, virtually nobody will enter a certain specialist way to earn a living, and remain doing exactly that for a working lifetime. Increasingly too, the best advances are those where diverse teams of people bring diverse past experiences and make innovative connections in applying one set of knowledge in an entirely different area.
One desperately neglected and understaffed field of work is care, and caring for carers. There are plenty of non-nursing requirements, such as to help tidy up or prepare food, or water the window box and refill the bird feeder for someone who is in bed, and has no other pleasure than those flowers and birds. Those tasks would assist the regular carer, and might lead someone to consider a health career, or else might tell them that they are not cut out for it after all. Either way, it is useful information before starting a path of study.
U.K. has horrible skills shortages, for instance, weirdly, an absence of female engineers and technicians unlike other countries. There are plenty of jobs for those who can work in various areas. It is hard to justify public money for student loans if the student could perfectly easily learn on line, while earning a living. It is, however, easy to justify public spending if it removes barriers to those students who have demonstrated aptitude, willingness and ability to work and study in a 'skill shortage' field. Any part of the work/study which can be done from home should be, and almost certainly a large part of the skills which need to be practical are best learned by watching and helping in a workplace where they will be needed, as a 'sandwich' with any college courses.
I'm in favour of nailing shut offices, Houses of Parliament, and most campuses. The refusal to accept technology and work from home is inexcusable. Climate Emergency would dictate an end to avoidable travel. Covid would give an incentive for the reluctant-to-change. Even Mr R Mogg must now be forced to admit technology has transformed the world, since Queen Victoria. (But has anyone told him she died?)