There are laws against essay mills in New Zealand and 17 states of the USA, with Ireland and Australia set to follow. The UK risks being left behind. The reputation of UK higher education depends entirely on the integrity of the degrees earned by students. If essay mills are banned in these other countries but can openly carry on their business in the UK, then the UK higher education sector will be at a serious disadvantage. More...

The advent of the Office for Students has genuinely changed the oversight of higher education – here, perception is reality. Funders, such as HEFCE, looked at provision but the OfS regulates for students – a real difference certainly. It is right that students and the student interest should take centre stage. More...

Tuition fees are a visceral subject for many students, who resent the fact that the generation which went before ‘pulled up the ladder of opportunity’. But with the number of young people going to university increasing tenfold since the 1950s, reform was always going to be necessary. More...

Research by Advance HE on attainment gaps by ethnicity shows an attainment gap in England of 15.6 percentage points, and there have been no resolutions in reducing this gap over the last two decades. Across UK higher education, this scale of gap persists when all other factors are accounted, which raises several points we have a moral duty to our learners to address. More...

Income contingent loans are viewed as either a tax liability or personal debt. Viewed as debt, the inclination of stakeholders across post-18 education is to turn fee loans and maintenance loans into teaching grants and maintenance grants. More...