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

Blog

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]

  • Who’s listening to the TNE student experience?

    31 July 2025 by David Carter, Tabetha Newman and Elizabeth Newall

    Transnational education (TNE) is an increasingly prominent feature in the UK higher education landscape. The sector now has more than 600,000 TNE students, who study outside the UK for awards made by UK providers. Growth in the number and diversity of TNE students shows no sign of stopping. This has…

  • The hidden cost of learning: how financial strain is reshaping student life

    29 July 2025 by Cheryl Watson

    Rising costs are now a defining feature of the student experience in the UK. What once felt like an educational ‘coming of age’ for young people is, for many, becoming a difficult balancing act between academic ambition and financial survival. From housing and transport to food and essential tech, students…

  • International Graduates and the New Employability Challenge

    28 July 2025 by Louise Nicol

    As global economies come under increasing strain from technological disruption, demographic change and tightening labour markets, one long-held assumption is starting to fray: that an overseas degree guarantees stronger employment outcomes for international graduates returning home. For many years, particularly across Asia, this belief underpinned the value proposition of international…

  • Dilemmas of research

    23 July 2025 by Chris Husbands and Janice Kay

    Most discussion about the crisis in higher education finances has focused on fee income: how undergraduate fee income has lagged inflation for too long, and how volatility in international fee income has made universities’ planning more difficult.  The challenges of research funding have been less frequently brought into the equation,…

  • Weekend reading: The Launch of the APPG on Students: Commission on Students in Higher Education

    19 July 2025 by Alex Stanley, Saranya Thambirajah, and Alex Sobel

    This blog was kindly authored by Alex Stanley, NUS Vice President of Higher Education, Saranya Thambirajah, NUS Vice President Equality & Liberation and Alex Sobel Member of Parliament for Leeds Central and Headingly. Today, we’re proud to launch the Commission on Students in Higher Education, a project between the APPG…

  • Addressing educational poverty

    18 July 2025 by Pam Tatlow

    The Government’s decision to extend free school meals to an estimated 500,000 primary school children is a win-win, both in addressing disadvantage and supporting learning and attainment. In fact, all primary-age school children in Scotland and London now receive free school meals, with an evaluation of the latter concluding that…