By Graeme Paton. Almost 3,000 courses were still available at Britain’s best universities on Thursday night as elite institutions scrambled to recruit bright students. Sixteen out of the 24 members of the elite Russell Group are advertising degree places through the clearing system. Courses are being left open to students who may have narrowly missed out on their original offer of a place at another highly sought-after institution. Many places are also likely to be taken by students who want to “trade up”, shunning their existing course offer after gaining better than expected grades. Last year, just 1,300 students gained places through “adjustment” but it is thought numbers could rise this summer. It represents the first evidence of a competitive market between universities after the Coalition reforms to the higher education system in England. More...

By Ian Walker. Research published yesterday shows that graduate earnings continue to exceed average non-graduate earnings whatever your degree, says economist Professor Ian Walker. The message from our research into the 'graduate premium' – published yesterday by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills – is simple: it's all good news for anyone willing to study hard. On average, if you complete a degree of any kind you're going to see a substantial return on your 'investment'.
Not only is it the case that average graduate earnings continue to exceed average non-graduate earnings (despite the dramatic recent rise in higher education participation), but also the riskiness in graduate earnings continues to be less than that of non-graduates. So called STEM subjects and business related degrees continue to be the best bets – partly reflecting the importance of quantitative skills across the market. But all subjects show a healthy return. Moreover, despite the rise in tuition fees the average return remains huge. Indeed, the tweaks to the loan system have been designed to favour those that do badly in the labour market. More...

By Graeme Paton. Top universities are discriminating against private school pupils by engineering admissions in favour of teenagers from the state system, according to the head of Britain’s biggest independent schools group. Institutions are attempting to drive down recruitment from the fee-paying sector to satisfy Government demands for a more socially-balanced student body, it is claimed.
Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the Independent Schools Council, said the creation of specific targets that discriminate between state and private school pupils were “wrong” and actually risked favouring affluent children from “middle-class comprehensives”. An analysis by the Telegraph shows that 11 out of 20 members of the elite Russell Group want to increase admissions from state schools over the next five years. This includes Cambridge, Durham, Exeter, King’s College London, the London School of Economics and Warwick. One institution – University College London – has pledged to boost the number of places awarded to state-educated entrants by 10 per cent by 2016. More...

By Cole Moreton. Girls may be outraged by this, but the man in charge of admissions at Oxford University believes boys do better in exams like science because they are better at taking risks.
“It depends on the subject discipline,” says Mike Nicholson, the director of undergraduate admissions. “We have generally seen male students tend to be much more prepared to take risks, which is why they do well in exams.
“Generally, female students are risk-averse, and will tend to take longer to think about an answer. If it’s a multiple-choice question, male students will generally go with their gut feeling. Girls will try and reason it out.”
What impact does that have on the results? “Obviously, if you are using timed multiple-choice assessments, that has a bearing on the likelihood of the female students even finishing the section, when the boys have whizzed through it.”
He admits to talking in “broad brush strokes” — but Thursday’s A-level results revealed that seven out of 10 students who sat English papers this year were girls, while eight out of 10 in physics exams were boys. There was an increase in both trends, widening the gender gap in a year when record numbers of students passed their A-levels. More...

By Deborah Gabriel. With just 85 black professors in the UK, Deborah Gabrielsays we need a more diverse curriculum for real change. If the same vigour and commitment that drive gender equality in higher education were directed towards race equality then better progress could be made in addressing the institutionalised racism that pervades the higher education sector.
While women now account for 44% of all academics within UK universities (2011/12 HESA Staff Record) , the percentage of black academics (combining black Caribbean, black African and black other) stands at 1.6%.
In a survey among the Black British Academics network, 81% of respondents said they were in favour of positive action targeted towards the groups most adversely impacted by race. The issue is not just that black academics are under-represented, says member Cecily Jones, an independent researcher, but also relates to "the conditions under which we work; the opaque pay negotiations and promotions structures".
There are just 85 black professors out of a total of 18,510 in the UK. More...

By Claire Shaw. Far from reaching its due-by date, academic library architecture is reflecting and predicting how we learn now and into the future. "The academic library has died," wrote Brian Sullivan, librarian at Alfred University, in an opinion piece responding to the gloomy tone of a 2011 report on the future of academic libraries. "One reason for cause of death is that library buildings were converted into computer labs, study spaces and headquarters for informational-technology departments." Although Sullivan is being facetious – the headline for his piece was 'Academic library autopsy report 2050' – there's no denying that the university library as we know it is changing. And this has become more evident over the past decade through changes in the way university library buildings look the world over. More...

By Don Nutbeam. A growing emphasis on interdisciplinary research is not matched by university learning and teaching, says Don Nutbeam. Such is the success of collaborative research in our universities that it is now almost second nature for specialists from different disciplines to choose to work together. Cross-disciplinary collaboration helps usresolve some of the most challenging issues facing society; in areas ranging from sustainable energy to global health, climate change to cyber-security. What is remarkable is that this increasing emphasis on interdisciplinary research not been matched in university learning and teaching. The curricula offered by the UK's research intensive universities remain largely discipline-based and designed to deliver a set of subject-based outcomes – of great depth but increasing narrowness. This status quo is, to a large extent, upheld by the requirements of the many professional, statutory and regulatory authorities responsible for accrediting courses for the different professions; and to a lesser degree by conservatism in the academic community. More...

By Ellen Collins. Paywalls may not be the only barrier we need to overcome if the public is to benefit from academic research, says Ellen Collins. I hit a career high when my research on university library data recently appeared in the Guardian education pages. However, my initial surge of excitement was tempered slightly when I saw the journalist hadn't provided references to my actual study and significantly when I realised the single finding she'd quoted was – to put it charitably – not very reliable. My feelings on browsing the comments section can't really be articulated in a family news outlet, but it was clear that many people had picked up an incomplete understanding of how and why the research was being done. But the worst part of the experience was this: I had blogged the whole project – background, rationale, false starts, findings, corrections – openly online. Aren't these misunderstandings exactly the kind of problem that openness is supposed to prevent? More...

Editorial. For the individual student, the chance of being able to trade up after better than expected results could be a life-changing one. 

It ought not to be impossible to have a policy for universities that is about both promoting excellence and widening access. But it is important to recognise, all the same, that they are two different things, and there is always a risk that pursuing one objective might jeopardise the other. This year's decision to remove the recruitment cap on students with ABB or higher at A-level may be a case in point. For the individual student, the chance of being able to trade up after better than expected results could be a life-changing one. For the ecology of higher education, a flight to prestige – if it really happened – might deprive some of the newer universities of the students they need in order to remain viable in the long term. Some of those in the system think that in parts of the government, this is now regarded as a desirable consequence.

Even among some ministers who talk about the importance of broadening access, there is a perception that Britain has in practice a two-tier university system: the Russell Group of 24 older universities – and all the rest. More...

By Harry Slater. It's your biggest investment and most crucial piece of equipment, so choose carefully. Topping the list of university essentials is a lightweight, well-equipped and robust laptop. It should be portable enough to be easily carried from halls to lecture theatres to the library. It needs to boast the hardware and software for essay writing, note-taking and every form of procrastination in between. And ideally, it will last the length of your course. The space-saving, lightweight champion is the netbook. An affordable choice, they're ideal for lecture to library use. A good looking model with adequate Ram and hard drive space (4GB and 400GB respectively should cut it) can be picked up for £300-£350. More...