In Lampedusa’s novel, The Leopard, chronicling upheavals in Sicilian society, one of its characters offers this strategic pragmatic counsel, “If we want things to stay the same, things will have to change”.
Oxford University, the oldest English-speaking University in the world, which has itself evolved over nearly one thousand years, has today announced what its Vice-Chancellor, Professor Louise Richardson, calls a “sea-change” in admissions. More...
The Government is very interested in looking at the earnings of graduates so that, if a course produces low earnings, its value is questioned. But the data on this are poor, showing only how people have done early in their career and ignoring self-employment and those who work abroad. More...
The depressing fact, as the recently published Augar Review of post-18 Education and Funding notes, is that the overwhelming majority of young people who do not achieve a level 3 qualification by the age of 18 or 19 never do so. We can no longer afford to leave so many people behind. Instead, we should recognise that rather than making people ‘fit’ university life we must enable more institutions to ‘fit’ the circumstances of many more potential learners. More...
At HEPI, we publish around 20 papers a year, host around 30 events and blog nearly every day. Much, if not all of our output, is linked to good leadership.
Despite the competing political stories around, the publication of the Augar review on post-18 education is already leading to acres of coverage and commentary.
At HEPI, we have published an initial response, judged the recommendations against our original submission to the review and looked specifically at the parts of the report that focus on widening participation. More...
The report that universities and colleges have all been waiting for has finally landed. The immediate focus will be on the proposed reduction in the undergraduate tuition fee cap. But, while important and of particular concern to smaller and specialist institutions, it is just one recommendation among many. The lower fee cap was leaked weeks ago and the recommendation is that the funding shortfall should be made up by taxpayers. So the income spent on each student may not necessarily change much – at least on average and to begin with – even if fees do come down. More...
Yet when she stepped up to become Prime Minister a few months later, many vice-chancellors I spoke to were fairly positive about the change. Despite the constant battle between the higher education sector and the Home Office over international students during her time as Home Secretary, university leaders sensed her work ethic, her commitment to public service and her experience would make her an effective Prime Minister. More...
A new Occasional Paper from the Higher Education Policy Institute reveals a big increase in the number of university staff accessing counselling and occupational health services. More...
The 2019 Student Academic Experience Survey of over 14,000 full-time undergraduate students from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and Advance HE shows rising value-for-money perceptions. More...
By Michael Feldstein. When Phil and I were working together, I sometimes joked that we had a blog that owned a business. Today, that is more true than ever. This is the first time in my nineteen years of writing that my day job has aligned seamlessly with my public writing. You will see that reflected here. I will be writing about my work in ways that I haven't before. More...
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