‘Unbundling’ is the disaggregation of different elements of a service and its discrete re-packaging and sale. As anyone flying with Ryanair will know, you buy a seat separately from any baggage allowance as well as any food and possibly, one day, access to the on-flight toilets. More...

A new paper published by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) calls for greater transparency on the use of students’ tuition fees. More...

Yesterday the long anticipated (at least by those of us with an interest in HE data) Office for Students (OfS) data strategy was published. This provides greater clarity on the OfS understanding of their future role as they approach the halfway point through their transition year. More...

Novel and radical policy ideas are a rare thing. But Johnny Rich’s new HEPI Policy note Fairer funding: the case for a graduate levy represents a truly sweeping overhaul of university financing which would change many of the fundamentals of how universities are incentivised. More...

When reflecting on the legacy of Nelson Mandela, the founding father of South Africa’s post-apartheid democracy, now one-hundred years since his birth and almost five years since his passing, I continue to puzzle over the nature of South Africa’s transition to democracy, and in particular over the conjunctural facts that conspired with human agency to facilitate the country’s specific post-apartheid democracy outcome. More...