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The UK's only independent think tank devoted to higher education.

Month: May 2019

  • The success of the Access to HE students is an example of widening participation in action

    31 May 2019 by John Hayes

    Yesterday’s Augar review praised the track record of Further Education Colleges’ Access to HE courses, which it argued, provide better value for money than University foundation year courses. This timely guest blog by Rt. Hon Sir John Hayes MP, former Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning discusses the…

  • Marking Augar

    30 May 2019

    How should we judge today’s report on the review of post-18 education and funding? Just over a year ago, HEPI published ten points-of-note that the post-18 review would have to get to grips with to fix the broken parts of our education and training system. Here’s how the review stacks up…

  • Initial response to the Augar proposals

    30 May 2019

    In his initial response to the publication of the long-awaited Augar report on post-18 education, Nick Hillman, the Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: “The report that universities and colleges have all been waiting for has finally landed. The immediate focus will be on the proposed reduction in…

  • Discussing Augar, the Tory Leadership election and what university is for

    29 May 2019 by Nick Hillman

    When we start planning each year’s HEPI Annual Conference – which this year is taking place on 13 June at a prestigious central London venue – our first act is always to check our informal ‘HE clash calendar’. Higher education policy is such a busy field these days that it can…

  • What will the next Prime Minister think of higher education?

    28 May 2019

    Theresa May has announced the date for her departure and another Tory leadership contest is upon us. While the new Prime Minister’s first focus may not be higher education, the imminent announcement of the post-18 education review means tuition fees are a topic they will likely have to take a…

  • Theresa May and higher education

    25 May 2019

    HEPI Director Nick Hillman looks back on what Theresa May’s premiership has meant for higher education and universities. Back in 2015, during her final Conservative Party Conference speech as Home Secretary, Theresa May took a sharp dart from the box labelled ‘populism’ and fired it directly at universities: I don’t…

  • The university has become an anxiety machine

    23 May 2019 by Liz Morrish

    A guest blog kindly contributed by Dr Liz Morrish, author of  today’s new HEPI Occasional Paper 20: Pressure Vessels: The epidemic of poor mental health among higher education staff. There has recently been a significant amount of media concern surrounding the poor mental health of academics. In February 2018, Paul…