News Archives

Reducing the student loan repayment threshold to under £20,000 would save £3.8 billion and lower student loan write-off costs in England from over one-half (54%) to one-third (33%)
10 June 2021 by Nick Hillman
Although cuts to any form of education may be regarded as counter-productive in a period of upheaval, it has been widely reported that the Government are looking to make savings from public expenditure on higher education in England at the forthcoming spending review. The Higher Education Policy Institute is therefore…
People want free speech to thrive at universities … just not for racists, Holocaust deniers or advocates of religious violence
17 May 2021 by Richard Brabner
As part of forthcoming work in partnership with the Higher Education Policy Institute, the UPP Foundation commissioned detailed polling from Public First on public attitudes towards various elements of higher education. Given the current interest in free speech issues, we are releasing an excerpt of this polling today – ahead…
UK research funding less geographically concentrated than key competitors including US and Germany
13 May 2021
The UK’s research comparators – including the US and Germany – have greater geographical concentration of research funding, according to a new report. Regional policy and R&D: evidence, experiments and expectations, which is published today by the Higher Education Policy Institute, finds that geographic concentration of Research and Development (R&D)…
Most students think passing a sexual consent test should be compulsory before starting higher education
29 April 2021 by Nick Hillman
The key findings of a new poll of students’ personal lives published by the Higher Education Policy Institute in Sex and Relationships Among Students: Summary Report (HEPI Policy Note 30) by Nick Hillman, HEPI’s Director, include: most students (58%) regard making friends as more important than finding sexual partners and just one-in-ten…
More than half of students do not expect any more face-to-face teaching this academic year, but two-thirds of students are currently living in their usual term-time accommodation
1 April 2021
The Higher Education Policy Institute has worked with YouthSight on a poll of over 1,000 full-time undergraduate students to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting them. The results show: Two-thirds of undergraduate students (66%) say they have not received any financial reimbursement from their university or accommodation provider as…
New HEPI report demonstrates that moving away from the use of predicted grades in university admissions could harm, rather than benefit, fair admissions
18 March 2021
The Higher Education Policy Institute have published a new collection of essays on the future of undergraduate university admissions. Where next for university admissions? (HEPI Report 136), edited by Rachel Hewitt covers topics including: the arguments for and against post-qualification admissions; the role of contextual admissions; comparisons to international systems; and the…
An English Social Mobility Index: new report proposes a ranking of universities’ impact on social mobility
4 March 2021
The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) is today publishing a new paper, Designing an English Social Mobility Index (HEPI Debate Paper 27), which offers a methodology for comparing the contribution of individual English higher education providers’ to social mobility. The Index challenges the often-made assumption that only particular kinds of universities make…
Mixed Media: What Universities Need to Know About Journalism
18 February 2021
In a new report from the Higher Education Policy Institute, the former Education Editor of The Times, Rosemary Bennett, reveals there were over 7,000 stories about universities in the leading national daily and Sunday newspapers in 2020 and explains why higher education is receiving so much more media coverage than in…
New HEPI Debate Paper argues for the student loan scheme to be replaced by a graduate contribution scheme, including contributions from those who graduated in the era of grant-funded study
21 January 2021 by Alan Roff
The Higher Education Policy Institute (www.hepi.ac.uk) has published a new report on the student finance system in England, Student Finance in England from 2012 to 2020: From fiscal illusion to graduate contribution? (HEPI Debate Paper 25). Written by Alan Roff, the former Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Central Lancashire, the new…
New report warns that an excessive focus on university drop-out rates conflicts with other important priorities
7 January 2021 by Nick Hillman
As students prepare for the new term, the Higher Education Policy Institute is publishing a report on non-continuation (or ‘drop-out’) rates. A short guide to non-continuation in UK universities (HEPI Policy Note 28) by Nick Hillman, HEPI’s Director, looks at the scale of the problem, including showing that the UK has…