A reduction in tuition fees would make it harder for disadvantaged students to go to university, according to a group of funding charities. A post-18 education commission, set up by Theresa May, is reported to be considering recommending fees be cut to £6,500 from the current £9,250. At the moment universities are required to set aside part of their income to help students from poor or disadvantaged backgrounds enter higher education. That works out at about £860m for this year. But six charitie...

Prospective university students turn to parents and friends as much as teachers for advice on their options, new polling for the Office for Students shows. The poll, by YouthSight, comes as a new report from CFE Research calls for a more tailored approach to information provision that reflects individual students’ needs, backgrounds and preferences. The poll sought the views of over 2,000 current, prospective, and previous higher education students. It found that 71 per cent per cent of prospect...

The Office for Students has called for universities and employers to improve degree apprenticeship opportunities so they are available to all who could benefit from them. This follows research which shows that degree apprenticeships are providing opportunities in parts of the country that are under-represented in other forms of higher education and for students who want to learn whilst they are in work later in life. Degree apprenticeships are on the increase, as more employers, colleges and uni...

The government should fund colleges to offer GCSE and A levels for all learners, regardless of age, to help plug the country’s skills gap, a new report suggests. In its Filling in the biggest skills gap report, the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) identifies that there are major skills shortages at levels 4 and 5 and suggests that a reason for this is a shortfall of learners progressing from levels 2 and 3. A government review of provision at level 4 and 5 is currently ongoing. The repor...

Government reforms to the curriculum and exam assessment are out of kilter with good educational practice and the wider skills and competencies that employers’ organisations like the CBI have identified as being a desirable outcome of the education system (We need an alternative to universities, 17 August). To this list can be added the fragmentation of the school system, an obsession with academies and grammar schools, school performance indicators fixed to favour progression to a limited numbe...

Universities are asking for relatively lower grades under the international GCSE than they are for the reformed GCSE, Tes can reveal. With independent schools allowed to take the IGCSE but state schools barred from doing so, the entry requirements favour some privately educated pupils over their state sector peers. The news comes on top of renewed speculation that the IGCSE may be an 'easier' course than the reformed GCSE. ‘IGCSE’ is a term used as shorthand for a family of alternative key stage...

There’s been a lot of talk of degree apprenticeships as a great alternative to university. Just this morning, education secretary Damian Hinds tweeted that there is a “huge range of opportunity” for students collecting results today, “whether it’s university, college, starting an apprenticeship or entering the world of work”. With degree apprenticeships typically paying salaries of £15,000 – £20,000, compared to annual tuition fees of £9,000, the finances make sense. Plus, you get to work in you...

The proportion of young people who think it’s important to go to university has hit a six-year low, according to a new poll. In 2013, 86 per cent of 11- to 16-year-olds surveyed by the social mobility charity the Sutton Trust thought it was important to go to university to do well – this year, those agreeing had fallen to 75 per cent. The survey results were published as students pick up their A-level results today and will learn whether or not they have got into the university course they wante...