A new paper from the Higher Education Policy Institute, Unheard: the voices of part-time adult learners (HEPI Report 124) by Dr John Butcher of the Open University, considers the sharp decline in part-time learning through the voices of students. Between 2011/12 and 2017/18, there was a 60% fall in the number of…
The value of higher education has been fiercely debated in recent years and the Government are committed to cracking down on ‘low value’ courses. Many criticise the use of existing metrics to define value, such as graduate salaries and the Teaching Excellence Framework, but, to date, no better alternative has…
While there are always plenty of topics to be grappling with in higher education, there tends to be one issue that dominates the discussion. For 2019 this was the Augar review, despite the fact the independent panel was originally due to report in 2018. Throughout the year those of us…
HEPI’s last foray into the debate on academic selection suggested grammar schools are successful in helping their poorer pupils reach highly-selective universities. In this response, a diverse set of voices use the latest evidence to challenge the idea that grammar school systems serve pupils better than comprehensive schools. This collection…
A new collection of essays published by the Higher Education Policy Institute entitled Social Mobility and Higher Education: Are grammar schools the answer? (HEPI Occasional Paper 22) looks at the latest evidence on academic selection. The eight authors are leading figures in the study of education and social mobility at the…
The end of a decade offers the chance to reflect on how higher education policy has changed in the past and where it will go in the future. Higher education has been through a turbulent time in recent years and there is no reason to assume the 2020s will be…
This week marks a year since I first joined HEPI as Director of Policy and Advocacy and it seems I couldn’t have picked a more interesting year to do so. In that year, I’ve seen three higher education ministers (Gymiah, Skidmore, Johnson and then Skidmore again), two Brexit deadlines passed…
There is a fairly clear consensus in higher education that we have a lot of work to do to tackle racial inequality. Students from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups (a controversial classification in its own right) have poorer experiences at university than White students. Numbers of Black academics are…
This blog was written by HEPI’s Director of Policy and Advocacy, Rachel Hewitt. The issue of whether students are getting good value for money has been a focus since fees came into play but has been increasingly under the policy spotlight in recent months. Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State…
In this new Policy Note, Rachel Hewitt, HEPI Director of Policy and Advocacy, reports on the results of a new poll of students on Augar, funding and the cost of living. Key points: Students’ views are mixed between the current tuition fee model and Augar’s recommendation to lower fees: 40%…