The HEPI Blog aims to make brief, incisive contributions to the higher education policy landscape. It is circulated to our subscribers and published online. We welcome guest submissions, which should follow our Instructions for Blog Authors. Submissions should be sent to our Blog Editor, Josh Freeman, at [email protected].
At a recent partnership event, John Blake, Director for Fair Access and Participation at the Office for Students (OfS), spoke about the important role of collaboration in increasing equality of opportunity in English higher education. Owing to the benefits successful partnerships can, and do, bring to the sector, John announced…
At the end of 2023, UCAS and Pearson issued a report on Chinese students in the UK, which looked into motivations for studying at British higher education institutions (HEIs). Findings revealed the reputation and quality of UK HEIs to be two main factors. Yet, all five options provided to UCAS/Pearson…
Tony Blair’s commitment that his Labour government would achieve 50 per cent participation in higher education was made in 1999, although the participation rate did not start rising substantially until the coalition government of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats ended England’s student number controls in 2013. More recently, however, the…
Over the last two years, pressure from policymakers for university outreach teams to play a strategic, proactive role in supporting the GCSE attainment of young people from underrepresented backgrounds has gradually increased. The debate about whether it is something that universities ‘should be doing’ rattles on. But the appointment of…
Franchising, like Topsy, has ‘just growed’. The Higher Education and Research Act (2017) cast a wide net, containing all ‘providers of higher education’, whether or not they had degree-awarding powers or the right to be called ‘universities’. It included providers offering higher education only up to Level 4, leading to…
It was in November 2022 that universities minister Robert Halfon famously told a House of Lords committee that “degree” and “apprenticeships” are his “two favourite words in the English language”. He has also said that he would like to see half of all university students registered on apprenticeship programmes. That…
Four years ago, on 26 March 2020, the UK’s first COVID-19 lockdown came into force and our lives changed overnight. As we saw the death toll rise, it was apparent that the elderly, the vulnerable, the sick and all those who cared for them were facing considerable risk. For the younger…
The (long awaited) return of the MAC Last week we finally saw the government commission the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to review the Graduate visa. It had been anticipated for some time, following an announcement from the Home Secretary in December that the government were keen to ensure the visa…
The urgent need for long-term funding solutions for higher education across the UK has been the topic of much discussion in recent months between providers and policymakers and in the press. It is a matter which has achieved particular prominence in England, where a number of institutions have announced significant…
In the Summer of 2023, we launched the Initial Decisions for the Research Excellence Framework. In December 2023, in response to input to our Initial Decisions consultation, we published a series of conclusions and importantly included an extension of the assessment period until 2029 to allow more time for institutions…