The HEPI Blog aims to make brief, incisive contributions to the higher education policy landscape. It is circulated to our subscribers and published online. We welcome guest submissions, which should follow our Instructions for Blog Authors. Submissions should be sent to our Blog Editor, Josh Freeman, at [email protected].
A guest blog kindly contributed by Peter Ainsworth, Managing Director of Equimatrix, and author of Universities Challenged: Funding Higher Education through a Free-Market ‘Graduate Tax’ published by the Institute of Economic Affairs. 2019 appears set to be a defining year for the Higher Education sector. After years of plenty following…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Dennis Sherwood, who runs the Silver Bullet Machine consultancy. Last August, 811,776 A level and 5,470,076 GCSE grades were awarded to candidates in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. What happened next was sometimes jubilation (“B in history! Fantastic! I’m in!”); sometimes despair (a 3 in GCSE maths can close many doors).…
Like many people, I feel conflicted about grammar schools. I live in a part of the country where they are a mainstream part of the school system. The minority of local children who pass the 11+ have high chances of thriving at one of our three local(ish) grammar schools, but…
This book review has been kindly written for HEPI by Anand Shukla, Chief Executive of the online mentoring charity Brightside The importance of social mobility is a rare area of policy consensus between the main UK political parties. Given the decline of intergenerational social mobility in the last 50 years, it…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Jonathan Woodhead, Policy Adviser at Birkbeck, University of London The launch of Onward’s contribution to the higher education debate today with their report A Question of Degree is certainly an interesting one. While I personally look forward to reading more of Onward’s work in…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Professor Jo Price, Vice-Chancellor at the Royal Agricultural University. During his session at the annual Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) on January 2nd 2019, Michael Gove mentioned that Agriculture should be considered as a STEM subject. This will be music to the ears of anyone…
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…
This blog is written by Giles Carden, Chief of Staff and Director of Strategic Projects, Lancaster University. It originally appeared as a case study in HEPI’s report Homeward Bound: Defining, understanding and aiding ‘commuter students’ by David Maguire and David Morris. Lancaster University has embodied the principles of the ‘sticky campus’ and…
This blog is written by Paresh Shah, Research Manager, London Higher. It originally appeared as a case study in HEPI’s report Homeward Bound: Defining, understanding and aiding ‘commuter students’ by David Maguire and David Morris. During 2016/17, nearly 93,000 full-time first degree UK students were domiciled in London and remained in…
This blog is written by Miriam Amies, Engagement Coordinator, University of Manchester Students’ Union. It originally appeared as a case study in HEPI’s report Homeward Bound: Defining, understanding and aiding ‘commuter students’ by David Maguire and David Morris. Since 2014 the University of Manchester Students’ Union has been running the Off-Campus…