In recent years the policy spotlight has been shining on careers and employability provision. Graduate destination metrics heavily influence Teaching Excellence Framework outcomes and league table positions. This part of the institutional offer plays a key role in student recruitment and is a hot topic at open days across the sector. More...

Better off parents also have extra options should they think their offspring might not reach the proposed grade threshold, getting them ‘over the line’ through private tuition, funding exam resits, or paying for exam grade appeals. This is a point too rarely highlighted in this debate: the threshold would primarily hit the aspirational poorer applicant, not a middle- or upper-class applicant with lower attainment. More...

Recently, I was talking to an academic colleague who I have known for more than 10 years – and who I had always assumed was from a relatively privileged background in the south of England (as I am). ‘Actually, I’m from Hartlepool,’ he told me, before revealing that his accent had morphed into something close to received pronunciation (RP) when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge. More...

Last week the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) published their consultation on the future of the data it collects, in response to their changing role as the designated data body. To me, this exemplified the change in the way higher education regulation has changed since the Higher Education Research Act (HERA). More...

There is a widespread view that this country does not produce enough STEM graduates, particularly engineers. It is also believed (by some at least) that we produce too many of the wrong type of graduates, some of whom should be ‘diverted’ into technical education. More...