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].
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…
Attending Duolingo’s inaugural DETcon London, I anticipated a day focused on the evolving landscape of language testing. What I experienced was a candid, and at times controversial, conversation about the geopolitical, political, and technological pressures facing UK higher education. Duolingo may have been the convenor, but the themes of the…
This HEPI blog was kindly authored by Maggie Smart, UCAS Director of Data and Analysis As we pass the 30 June deadline for this year’s undergraduate admissions cycle, UCAS’ data offers an early view of applicant and provider behaviour as we head into Confirmation and Clearing. It also marks a…
We are well beyond the tipping point. Students are using generative AI – at scale. According to HEPI’s Student Generative AI Survey 2025, 92% of undergraduates report using AI tools, and 88% say they’ve used them in assessments. Yet only a third say their institution has supported them to use these…
Just as singer Joan Armatrading pleads ‘what more can we do’ in her song ‘Flight of the Wild Geese’ from the 1978 war film The Wild Geese, higher education leaders — gathered at a recent roundtable dinner convened by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and Lloyds Bank in Liverpool…
AI demands a radical shift in education, fostering adaptability, creativity, ethics, and collaboration to thrive in a transformed world.
When levelling up was popular in political and media circles, it was a source of bemusement to some of us in Higher Education. After all, universities as anchor institutions have been helping level up our communities and delivering economic impact for decades, or even longer. Coventry University Group is now…
I am an advocate for education technology. It is a growing force for good, providing great solutions to real problems: Products and services that solve these problems will continue to take root. All that said, we have not seen the widespread transformation in education that technology promised to deliver, and…
In a speech on Friday, the Minister for Skills, Baroness Smith, strongly chastised her alma mater, the University of Oxford, for taking a third of their entrants from the 6% of kids that go to private schools. In a section of the speech entitled ‘Challenging Oxford’, we were told the situation is…
In recent years, financial pressures have mounted across the entirety of the UK higher education (HE) sector, and have left many institutions in an exceptionally vulnerable position. In England alone, 43% of institutions are expected to face a financial deficit for 2024-25, prompting the House of Commons Education Select Committee…