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Nick Hillman

  • What do students really think about tuition fees?

    27 February 2018 by Nick Hillman

    This month, I have spent time at both Edinburgh Napier University and the University of the West of Scotland as well as various English universities and I have also recently penned a new publication on tuition fees. So I have been mulling over the different student finance systems in place…

  • Arts on the cheap? Time for a return to evidence-based policymaking

    23 February 2018 by Professor John Last, Vice-Chancellor, Norwich University of the Arts

    This guest blog has been kindly written for us by Professor John Last, Vice-Chancellor of Norwich University of the Arts.  Don’t say it too loudly … but did evidence-based policymaking make a quiet comeback this week? Twenty months after Michael Gove declared that Britain has ‘had enough of experts’, the Prime…

  • Two-thirds of students reject differential tuition fees for different courses

    22 February 2018

    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…

  • Differential tuition fees: Horses for courses?

    22 February 2018 by Nick Hillman

    This paper summarises the debate about differential tuition fees in UK higher education. It includes the results of a survey among students about differential fees. It also argues that differential fees are unlikely to deliver the benefits their supporters claim.

  • The rise of commuter students…?

    20 February 2018 by Nick Hillman

    One of the lesser-spotted facts in yesterday’s announcements about the new higher education funding review was the Government’s intention to ensure more ‘commuter degrees‘. I have written about the plight of live-at-home students before. They are different to others, both in terms of their demographics and their outcomes. For example,…

  • Comment on the Prime Minister’s speech

    19 February 2018

    Responding to the Prime Minister’s speech on education, Nick Hillman, the Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: On funding The review team start with enormous expectations on their shoulders. People want them to reduce tuition fees for some or all courses, lower the interest on student loans, bring…

  • 2017 HEPI Annual Lecture

    1 February 2018 by Professor Tan Chorh Chuan

    This is a revised version of the most recent HEPI Annual Lecture, which 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…

  • What’s the role of academics in supporting students’ mental health?

    30 January 2018 by Rachel Piper – Policy Manager at Student Minds

    HEPI has produced two recent reports on the important issue of students’ mental health (see here and here). Jointly with the Higher Education Academy, we also survey students each year to assess their wellbeing. So we were delighted to see the important new report from Student Minds entitled Student Mental Health: The Role…