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

Nick Hillman

  • Our most controversial, popular and radical reports of 2018

    3 January 2019

    HEPI had its busiest ever year in 2018 with, for example, a record number of hits on this website – double the number we received just a couple of years ago. So it seems a good moment to take stock of some of our output over the past year. The…

  • A tariff threshold for HE admissions?

    18 December 2018 by Mary Curnock Cook

    This guest blog has been kindly written for HEPI by Mary Curnock Cook – follow her on Twitter at @MaryCurnockCook.  It was in the Browne Report in 2010.  The Browne team recognised that the government would need some kind of mechanism for controlling its exposure on student finance and proposed that a UCAS-tariff…

  • HEPI response to the ONS announcement on student loans

    17 December 2018

    In response to the announcement on the treatment of student loans in the national accounts by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Nick Hillman, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: ‘The 180-degree flip by the Office for National Statistics may seem embarrassing for policymakers but it is more…

  • Why we will all still need to go on talking about international students in 2019

    17 December 2018 by Nick Hillman

    We started 2018 by publishing HEPI’s most substantial ever piece of work. Back in January 2018, we published a report by London Economics, commissioned jointly by HEPI and Kaplan International Pathways, which showed the contribution of international students to the UK. The report built upon our previous work on soft…

  • Why all students should do some Accounting

    14 December 2018 by Nick Hillman

    When, next week, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) rule on the way student loans appear in the national accounts, many people will perform a rue smile. The Government will be embarrassed because getting student loans off the books was arguably the primary cause of the high fees we have.…

  • Homeward Bound: Defining, understanding and aiding ‘commuter students’

    13 December 2018 by David Maguire and David Morris

    The vast majority of students in the UK experience higher education on a residential basis: they move away from home to study. But, for a significant minority of students, higher education is experienced differently. Around one-quarter of students live at home and commute to study, and in some parts of…

  • More support needed for ‘commuter students’, says new report

    13 December 2018

    The Government and higher education institutions should do more to support students who live away from campus – often in the parental home – and who commute long distances to study, according to a new report by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI). Homeward Bound: Defining, understanding and aiding ‘commuter…