By David Willetts. The government would like university students to see themselves as 'consumers'. But they should be proud first and foremost to be students.
Dear A-level students
I hope when you collect your results this morning you discover that you have got the grades you were looking for, particularly if you are hoping to go to university. If it has all worked out, congratulations! You are about to embark on one of the most important experiences of your life. But please don't pitch up at university at the end of September behaving like a consumer. You will be something more complex, more challenging and more important: you will be a student. It is not the same thing at all.
Unfortunately for you, being a student is an expensive business these days. The coalition government, muttering darkly about austerity back in 2010 and claiming that the nation could no longer afford generous support for students, has cut funding to universities and tripled university fees to £9,000 per year. To sell the new fee regime the government placed a heavy emphasis on the promise that students paying the elevated fees would be at the heart of the system and effectively acquire the status of consumers with the purchasing power to drive up standards as universities chase for business in a reinvigorated market in higher education. More...

By Jill Papworth. Determining where to live is the next step for those whose A-level results have secured them a place at university. If Thursday's A-level results mean your child has a confirmed place at university, the next task is to make sure their first-year accommodation is sorted out. Those with the right grades to secure their first choice offer may already have fixed up where they are going to live; new students can apply for accommodation once they have accepted an offer of a university place as their first choice before they get their A-level results. Others who have missed out on their first choice and are accepting a second choice or clearing place offer will need to contact the relevant university's accommodation services department swiftly and see what is left. More...

By David Willetts. The rise in people studying sciences and maths is very welcome, but arts and humanities subjects are also hugely valuable, both to employers and in their own right. Last week saw hundreds of thousands of students secure their places at university. More students than ever before have got their first choice as this government has freed universities from the old system of limits on the number of students each one could accept. Record applications from students from low-income backgrounds suggests that they understand they don't have to pay upfront to go to university: they recognise that paying back as graduates through PAYE is nothing like leaving university with a credit card debt. So this is the week our higher education reforms have really taken root. We want to see young people fulfilling their aspirations, and it would have been a tragedy if young people had given up on the dream of going to university. More...

By Richard Adams. Russell Group universities have joined competition for students, with successful A-level candidates now able to trade up. Britain's universities found themselves drawn into an intense competition to recruit students as the annual post-A-level scramble for university places got under way, with £1bn worth of student fees as the potential prize. The government's decision this year to allow unrestrained competition for students gaining ABB grades and above at A-level has seen members of the elite Russell Group of research universities entering the clearing market – a process known as "adjustment". At stake is the £9,000 in fees that students may bring with them, making the 2013 clearing round the most lucrative in British university history. More...

By Daniel Boffey. Number of universities offering modern languages degrees plunges from 105 in 2000 to 62 at start of this academic year.  As many as 40% of university language departments are likely to close within a decade, the former government adviser charged with bolstering foreign language uptake in higher education has warned, delivering a huge blow to the UK's diplomatic and economic hopes. Amid a deepening crisis in language learning – which is causing alarm at the highest levels of government – the number of universities offering degrees in modern languages has already plunged from 105 in 2000 to 62 at the start of this academic year. More...

By Richard Adams. Fewer students having to take part in clearing, suggesting universities have been making more generous offers. A record number of students have been accepted and confirmed on university courses, as the rush to secure a university place continues the day after A-level results were released. The latest update by Ucas, which administers the UK university admissions process, said that as of Friday morning more than 401,000 applications had been accepted by colleges and universities, the highest number on record. The previous highest total at this stage was 397,000 in 2011. Read more...

By Daniel Boffey. Applications for language courses slump – which is bad news for British diplomacy and business. Eighteen months ago, William Hague told a group of language professors whom he had invited to the Foreign Office that Britain's global standing in business – and, perhaps most pertinently, in the diplomatic world – was at grave risk from a lack of men and women with language skills. One academic who attended the meeting said: "He laid it on the table. He told us there is an urgent need for Britain to improve its language capability."
Whether it be staffing UK embassies or key EU institutions, the language problem was beginning to have a major impact on a diplomatic service once famed for its ability to shape events in the Britain's national interest. Last week's A-level results, and Ucas figures will not have lifted the foreign secretary's mood. French and German – traditionally the two most popular language courses in schools – both appear in a list of the 10 most rapidly declining subjects this summer. Some 11,272 pupils studied French in 2013, a fall of 10% in a year and a near 50% decline over the last decade. German entries fell to a record low of just 4,242. It was a drop of 11% in 12 months and half the number since 2000. Other modern languages – which include Mandarin, Arabic and Italian – dropped this year from a combined 9,136 entries to 9,087. Read more...

By Amanda Ripley. BAMA Companies has been making pies and biscuits in Oklahoma since the 1920s. But the company is struggling to find Okies with the skills to fill even its most basic factory jobs. Such posts require workers to think critically, yet graduates of local schools are often unable to read or do simple maths. This is why the company recently decided to open a new factory in Poland—its first in Europe. “We hear that educated people are plentiful,” explains Paula Marshall, Bama’s boss.
Poland has made some dramatic gains in education in the past decade. Before 2000 only half of the country’s rural adults would finish primary school. Yet international rankings now put the country’s students well ahead of America’s in science and maths (the strongest predictor of future earnings), even as the country spends far less per pupil. What is Poland doing right? And what is America doing wrong? Amanda Ripley, an American journalist, seeks to answer such questions in “The Smartest Kids in the World”, her fine new book about the schools that are working around the globe. Read more...

By Jonnelle Marte. 1. “Expect empty seats.”
Many people sought shelter from the recession by heading to graduate school, but enrollment has declined as the economy has improved. The number of first-time masters’ and doctoral students starting classes on campuses around the country dropped 1.7% in the fall of 2011 from the year before, according to the most recent data from the Council of Graduate Schools, a national organization that advocates for graduate programs. (Applications to law school and full-time two-year M.B.A. programs, not included in the council’s data, are also declining. Medical school applications rose slightly last year.)
It was the second consecutive drop in first-time enrollment, following a stretch of annual increases going back to the fall of 2003.While people with advanced degrees generally earn more than the average American, and are less likely to be unemployed, more people are now skeptical about whether those advantages are worth the upfront costs — and the growing debt burden. In 2010, enrollment dropped more significantly at public universities, but that shifted in 2011, when private not-for-profit universities saw the largest declines. When it comes to majors, the biggest drops in 2011 were in education, arts and humanities. Enrollment still grew in health sciences, math and computer science, according to the report. Read more...

Afin de comprendre les problématiques rencontrées par les entrepreneurs sur les médias sociaux, j’ai décidé de consacrer une rubrique complète au décryptage de ces nouveaux outils par secteur d’activité. Cette fois-ci, je vais m’intéresser de plus près à la communication social-média des universités et écoles dans l’enseignement supérieur.
Problématiques du secteur
Sur le marche très concurrentiel des études supérieures, les écoles et universités mettent en place différents leviers afin de maximiser le nombre de candidatures d’étudiants.
Prestige, renommée des professeurs, contenus pédagogiques, débouchés… De nombreux critères vont être pris en considération par les futurs clients/étudiants. Il est donc nécessaire pour ces établissements de savoir se mettre en valeur afin de convaincre/persuader l’étudiant de tenter sa chance.
Ces écoles/universités ont quatre cibles principales :
- les potentiels candidats
- les étudiants de l’école/université
- les Alumni (anciens élèves)
- les employeurs.
Sur les réseaux sociaux, nous verrons que ces établissements communiquent sur des axes différents mais complémentaires afin de pouvoir défendre au mieux leur réputation, par :
1) La mise en avant de l’expertise du corps professoral
2) La mise en avant de l’actualité de l’école
3) La communication sur la vie en tant qu’étudiant (Inside)
4) La mise en avant des “réussites”
5) Les relations écoles/étudiants. Suite...