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

Nick Hillman

  • Response to the National Audit Office report

    8 December 2017

    In response to the National Audit Office’s new report on The higher education market, Nick Hillman, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: It is true that the higher education market is still evolving and that there are areas where further improvements can be made – such as improved…

  • HEPI 14th Annual Lecture: A perspective from Asia

    8 December 2017

    Last night, HEPI was honoured to host Professor TAN Chorh Chuan, President of the National University of Singapore, who delivered the 14th HEPI Annual Lecture. It was striking how many people said afterwards that the Lecture made elements of the UK’s current higher education debate seem rather too parochial. So we…

  • Parents: Your student children need your ££££

    6 December 2017 by Nick Hillman

    Martin Lewis, the Money Saving Expert, has been on the warpath in recent months regarding parental contributions towards students’ living costs. He has, quite rightly, pointed out that – for all but the poorest students – the maintenance loan system rests upon an assumption that parents will contribute to living…

  • Why the OBR’s forecasts on students must improve

    1 December 2017 by Nick Hillman

    In this Policy Briefing Note, Why the OBR’s forecasts on students must improve, we question the Office for Budget Responsibility’s predictions of future student numbers.

  • Official forecasts for future student numbers cut by 125,000 – or more than 10%

    1 December 2017 by Nick Hillman

    HEPI is today launching a short paper, Why the OBR’s forecasts on students must improve, that questions the Office for Budget Responsibility’s predictions of future student numbers. These have led to the removal of over 100,000 students from the official forecasts for the next few years. Nick Hillman, Director of the Higher Education…

  • Review of David Willetts’s ‘A University Education’ by Professor Andy Westwood

    23 November 2017 by Andy Westwood

    Last night, HEPI – kindly supported by the UPP Foundation and Oxford University Press, as well as Warwick Business School – hosted an event to mark the launch of David Willetts’s new book, A University Education. After Lord Willetts had run through some of the key arguments in the book, Sir Michael Barber…

  • Another referendum?

    21 November 2017 by Nick Hillman

    Yesterday, the Guardian HE Network ran an article of mine under the headline ‘University vice-chancellors, start calling for a second EU referendum’. Many interpreted this as a call for a straight re-run of the 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU. They were wrong to do so, as…

  • Can we learn from boarding schools to help commuter students stick?

    20 November 2017 by Nick Hillman

    The boarding-school model of higher education In Britain, we have a ‘boarding-school model’ of higher education. Enrolling at university as a young full-time student usually means moving away from home for a full-on residential experience. Compared to other countries, this is odd. Elsewhere, people typically transfer from a local school…