Universities must not put “bums on seats” ahead of providing high-quality degrees that offer students value for money and good earning potential, the Universities Minister has said. In a stark warning, Sam Gyimah said institutions need to take responsibility and “police themselves” to ensure they are not offering “threadbare” and “cheap” courses. He argued that there is variability between courses and institutions in potential future income that is a cause for concern. Read More.

The Office for Students (OfS) has today published a report on the first year of the National Collaborative Outreach Programme (NCOP). The report showcases how 29 consortia - funded by the OfS - are working collaboratively with local schools, colleges, universities and businesses to creatively develop outreach opportunities for young people in specific areas where higher education participation has been identified as lower than expected given the GCSE results of the young people living there. Cli...

The biggest questions being asked right now in higher education are about money. How much should universities charge? Should they be free? Should they be funded? Where is all their money going? But, for applicants at least, finance is not a barrier to higher education in the UK right now. The ability to pay university fees doesn’t disenfranchise qualified applicants in the UK, as it does in so many other parts of the world. However, for some critics of the system, issues of money mask a bigger q...

Fewer students from the most deprived parts of Scotland are entering university, according to the latest Scottish Funding Council report on widening access. The figures show 13.8 per cent of entrants from the poorest 20 per cent of areas in Scotland started full-time degrees. Although this is only a small decrease from 14 per cent in the previous year, universities have been told by the Scottish Government to accelerate widening access to meet its targets. The target set by t...

A new route would achieve fairness in our society through offering flexibility, writes Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes. There are lots of strongly held views about the current state of the apprenticeship programme in England. The range is wide, with some setting out how disastrous the reforms have been and others applauding the success despite the collapse in starts. I have my own views, of course, but more than anything I think there needs to be more analysis of t...

According to a variety of studies, wealthy, white students not only get into university at disproportionate rates but also perform better once in tertiary education. With the recent spate of articles and research papers that have come to light on this issue, one might think we are undergoing a collective awakening about the inequalities rampant in our higher education system. However, for any with eyes and ears, the problem has been clear for quite some time. If the issue were confined to univer...

The Department for Education has published its long-awaited response to the T level implementation consultation including, the first 52 colleges and providers to teach the new qualifications. The government has also addressed concerns about the speed of the implementation of the T level rollout, by announcing that the start date of some programmes will be delayed. The move comes just days after the education secretary rejected calls from the DfE’s permanent secretary for a one-year delay to the ...

Surely we could design a less intrusive but reliable way of reporting on pupils’ achievements at 16, says Kevin Stannard. Last week neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore tweeted, “Why do we even have GCSEs now that young people have to be in full-time education until 18?” In asking this question in May, she broke the long-standing convention that we should wait until results day before laying into the exam system. But the existential GCSE question keeps coming up, and it deserves a cons...

As the Government’s review of Post-18 Tertiary Education moves forward, we continue to deliberate about the value, the benefit and the returns from higher education. The level of tuition fees have, in particular, thrown this matter into sharp relief. There are, of course, many measures that can be used to assess value, benefit or return. But an important one for prospective students is what happens next to those who successfully graduate. If graduates from one course do well, applicants to it wi...