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, Rose Stephenson, at [email protected].
Imagine the following scenario. First, a Prime Minister lacking a clear parliamentary majority feels obliged by electoral forces to bring a particular policy to Parliament for MPs to vote on. This policy is a notable u-turn from her previous position. The new policy is also an uneasy compromise. It does…
The 17th day of December is a fairly momentous day in history. According to a website called infoplease, France first recognised America then, the first heavier-than-air plane was flown by the Wright brothers and NAFTA was signed. A different website records it as the day of the first ever heart, lung…
On Thursday evening, Sam Gyimah gave an entertaining speech at the Times Higher awards. It showed a shrewd grasp of the main issues facing the sector. He also told us he was due to leave for Brussels at 5am the next day for meetings. Perhaps it was the prospect of…
Yesterday the long anticipated (at least by those of us with an interest in HE data) Office for Students (OfS) data strategy was published. This provides greater clarity on the OfS understanding of their future role as they approach the halfway point through their transition year. Much within the data strategy…
A guest blog from Alan Palmer, Head of Policy and Research at MillionPlus. Johnny Rich’s paper for HEPI on a graduate levy to fund higher education benefits from being much-needed new thinking in the debate about how to fund our university system. The current approach places the burden of repayment heavily…
Novel and radical policy ideas are a rare thing. But Johnny Rich’s new HEPI Policy note Fairer funding: the case for a graduate levy represents a truly sweeping overhaul of university financing which would change many of the fundamentals of how universities are incentivised. There are many details to be…
The 2018 HEPI Annual Lecture and subsequent reception were kindly sponsored by Pearson, to whom we are very grateful. Introduction When reflecting on the legacy of Nelson Mandela, the founding father of South Africa’s post-apartheid democracy, now one-hundred years since his birth and almost five years since his passing, I…
This blog is our first from HEPI’s new Director of Policy and Advocacy, Rachel Hewitt. Today’s report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies on The impact of undergraduate degrees on early career earnings in the UK has some interesting new perspectives on graduate earnings. It uses the Longitudinal Educational Outcomes (LEO) data…
Last week, I wrote a blog predicting our newest paper, which looks at the uses of tuition fees, would turn out to be one of our most controversial ever. That prediction has already turned out to be true, but not for the reasons I outlined. I had thought challenge would…
Our latest publication shows where student fees really go. As such, it has the potential to be one of HEPI’s most controversial reports ever. That is unintentional. We never stoke controversy for the sake of it. But exposing the uses to which England’s £9,250 undergraduate fees are put reveals things some…