News

The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and Brightside have today released a collection of action points for the new Office for Students on unlocking access to higher education.

Reaching the parts of society universities have missed: A manifesto for the new Director of Fair Access and Participation contains the views of 35 leading thinkers from academia, university administration, Parliament, think tanks and the media. Contributors include the President of the National Union of Students, Shakira Martin, the Chair of the Education Select Committee, Rob Halfon MP, and the Sutton Trust’s Director of Research, Conor Ryan.

Their proposals include:

experimenting with post-qualification admissions;
appointing a Commissioner for Student Mental Health;
requiring targets for students from care;
delivering mandatory unconscious bias training for staff;
granting fee waivers to asylum-seekers;
guaranteeing mentoring for every pupil who wants it;
curbing the use of unconditional offers;
mandating statistical returns on sexual orientation; and
founding new Oxbridge colleges to widen access.

Nick Hillman, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute and a contributor to the publication, said:
Real progress has been made in extending access to higher education. But we are only at the first furlong on a long journey. People from rich households are more likely to reach the most prestigious institutions, white working-class boys rarely make it to higher education and there is a big black attainment gap. Groups like disabled students, LGBT+ students and refugees all face barriers in meeting their potential.

The time for woolly ideas is over. We hope our specific recommendations for action are considered, tried and then evaluated for their effectiveness. My own recommendation is the foundation of some new Oxbridge colleges to open our most selective institutions up to a wider clientele.
Anand Shukla, Chief Executive of Brightside […]

HEPI is today publishing a new Policy Note, Benchmarking widening participation: how should we measure and report progress?, written by Professor Iain Martin, Vice-Chancellor at Anglia Ruskin University, which looks at each university’s success in widening participation and ensuring access to people from all backgrounds.

The paper puts forward a new measure of equity in participation, which demonstrates graphically the most equal – and most unequal – HE institutions in the UK.

Nick Hillman, Director of HEPI, said:
This analysis reveals which universities reflect wider society best, and those which have further to travel. It remains surprisingly controversial with some people to suggest that our oldest universities should mirror our society more closely.

Yet everyone benefits when there is the best possible fit between individuals and institutions. For example, learning outcomes are better when students from diverse backgrounds study alongside each other. On these sorts of issues, policymaking on schools can sometimes seem ahead of what goes on in the university sector.

Tackling the challenge is fraught with problems. The biggest obstacle is probably a fear among parts of society that have historically dominated our most selective universities that they could be squeezed out. That is one reason why the best way to deliver fairer access to selective institutions is the same as the best way to deliver widening participation overall, which is to provide more places.
Iain Martin, Vice Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University and the author of the report, said:
Widening participation and ensuring that students from all backgrounds are provided opportunities to study at a university that matches their talents and aspirations has been a pivotal part of English higher education policy and strategy for many years.

While much has been achieved, it remains that we do not have […]

The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) has published a major new piece of research looking at future demand for higher education places in England over the next decade.

The report, Demand for Higher Education to 2030, by Bahram Bekhradnia and Dr Diana Beech builds on HEPI’s long history of exploring demand for higher education but comes seven years after the last report on this topic.

The report examines the impact of major policy changes, demography and entry standards on participation rates. It shows:

the number of 18-year-olds in England is set to rise by 23 per cent by 2030;
if demography were the only factor, without any increase in participation, there would be an increase in demand of 50,000 full-time higher education places by 2030;
if participation also increases in the next dozen years or so at the same rate as the average of the last 15 years, then we can expect an increase in demand of 350,000 full-time higher education places by 2030;
countervailing factors that could reduce demand include Brexit, which is expected to reduce the number of places needed by around 56,000;
so the most likely outcome by the end of the next decade is a net increase in demand for full-time student places of around 300,000; and
demand for higher education places would be increased further if males were to match the participation of females during this time – although we do not predict that this will happen in the foreseeable future, if it were to do so then the extra demand could total over half a million new places.

In 2016/17, there were about 1.2 million full-time first-degree students in England, so demand for almost a third of a million additional places […]

The Higher Education Policy Institute (www.hepi.ac.uk) is publishing a paper on the idea of having different tuition fees for different degrees. Differential tuition fees: Horses for courses? by Nick Hillman summarises the debate, includes the results of a survey among students about differential fees and argues that more differentiated fees are unlikely to deliver the benefits claimed by their many proponents.

The survey results reveal:

around two-thirds of students (63%) think full-time undergraduate courses should all have the same fees while one-in-three disagree (33%)
when asked to state a preference, students prefer higher fees for ‘courses that cost more to teach’ (57%) than ‘courses that lead to higher earnings’ (17%) or ‘courses at more famous universities’ (7%)
when questioned about the possibility of introducing higher fees for some subjects, more than half of students (52%) say higher fees might be justified for Medicine but just 7% think they could be justified for Arts (such as History or English) and only 6% for Modern Languages
when questioned about the possibility of introducing lower fees for some subjects, 39% say lower fees might be justified for Arts (such as History or English), but just 9% think they could be justified for Law and only 8% for Physics
most students (59 per cent) oppose lower fees for poorer students, although a substantial minority (38 per cent) back the idea

Nick Hillman, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute and the author of the report, said:
Different degrees are already meant to cost different amounts but, in England, fees have bunched up at the maximum price of £9,250 a year. Moving to a system of truly differential fees has many influential supporters. Some people seem to think having different fees for […]

The Higher Education Policy Institute is publishing Major shifts in global higher education: A perspective from Asia by Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, President of the National University of Singapore (NUS) from 2008 to 2017, on Thursday, 1 February (HEPI Report 103).

This is a revised version of the most recent HEPI Annual Lecture, in which Professor Tan discussed the transformation of higher education in Asia. He focused in particular on: the ‘massification’ of higher education; the spread of liberal arts education; the expansion of the quantity of research; the importance of universities to innovation; and the need to provide the skills for the future.

Nick Hillman, HEPI Director, said:
The rise of Asian universities is, without doubt, the single most important current change happening in global higher education. It threatens the dominance of the Anglo-Saxon models in countries like the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, while also providing unrivalled opportunities for international co-operation. This HEPI Annual Lecture shows how the rapid changes occurred, considers what they mean and looks ahead to the future.
In the lecture, Professor Tan said:
In the developed economies of Asia, such as South Korea and Japan, high participation rates have been maintained. But the big story in the last decade has been the unprecedented rise in China and, to a lesser extent, India. The numbers involved are remarkable. It is estimated that, by 2020, China alone will have over 37 million students in higher education and India will have over 27 million. This is positive because many more students are having the opportunity to develop intellectually and pursue expanded career options. But it has also brought about significant challenges. The first is graduate unemployment and graduate under-employment. …

One significant trend has been […]