Vince Cable, the business and universities secretary, is a man with a problem. Despite Nick Clegg’s best efforts, the Liberal Democrats fought the election on a ludicrous higher education policy of scrapping fees. Now, faced with being in charge of HE policy, Cable has to perform contortions to try to get himself off the hook. Hence his graduate tax idea. Read more...
Opinion about Higher education
Crash course in HE finance, by Stephen Court
Next month will bring the moment of truth for this year’s record numbers of university applicants. On 19 August hundreds of thousands of A-level students find out their exam results. Those who achieved the grades they needed should be accepted by the universities they have applied to. Those who haven’t will have to join the clearing scrum to try and get onto a course elsewhere. Read more...
8 July 2010 | Stephen Court
University challenge, by Stephen Court
These are uncertain times for universities. Today’s announcement by the Higher Education Funding Council for England of its recurrent funding allocations for universities for 2010-11 show that more than a quarter will have a real terms cut and over half face a cash cut. Read more...
18 March 2010 | Stephen Court
Access denied, by Stephen Court
Spending cuts to higher education will hamper efforts to increase social mobility. So it might be time to ask employers to pay their fair share Read more...
22 January 2010 | Stephen Court
Elitist or copycat? by Conor Ryan
David Cameron has said today that he wants to make teacher training ‘brazenly elitist’. His main proposals are to ban graduates with third class degrees from teacher training and to rebrand the Graduate Teacher Programme – which mainly targets career changers who want to enter teaching – as Teach Now. Read more...
18 January 2010 | Conor Ryan
University challenge, by Conor Ryan
The parties are pushing any decision on increased university tuition fees until after a 2010 election. All the predictions suggest that the review will propose that fees increase from their current maximum of £3225 a year to anything between £5000 and £7000. But neither the Conservatives – who have dropped their previous opposition to fees – nor Labour are keen to advertise this before an election. Hence the cross-party agreement on a fees review – details probably next week, but heralded by today’s publication of a new higher education framework by Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, echoing a similar deal between the Tories and Labour in the Dearing review that led to the £1000 annual fee after the 1997 election. Read more...
3 November 2009 | Conor Ryan
CBI suffers from physics envy, by Stephen Court
The CBI – which brands itself ‘the voice of business’ – is sounding more and more like a political party. Today it published New government in action – its manifesto for whoever wins the next election. Read more...
28 September 2009 | Stephen Court
Education no longer sacrosanct, by Conor Ryan
Schools Secretary Ed Balls raised eyebrows at the weekend with his Sunday Times interview where he offered up £2bn in savings from his departmental budget. Meanwhile, a new CBI report today has advocated a combination of higher fees and reduced subsidies for student loans as a way of finding extra resources to fund higher education. Read more...
21 September 2009 | Conor Ryan
Quick-fire topical postings from our expert bloggers - read The PF blog.
Read Colin Talbot, Tony Travers, Conor Ryan, Melissa Benn...more PF bloggers.
