By John O'Leary | 8 September 2010
Steve Smith is a worried man. As President of Universities UK, it would be unnatural for the Exeter University vice-chancellor not to be concerned at ...read more
Stick together to resist the axe
By Aaron Porter | 7 September 2010
The first formal bilateral meeting between the National Union of Students and the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals took place in 1968, but in ...read more
By Mike Boxall | 6 September 2010
The business of higher education over the past 20 years – if not longer – has been a Micawberesque balancing act of matching getting to ...read more
By John O'Leary | 28 July 2010
The first shots were fired this month in what seems certain to be a bloody war over public sector pensions. Although it is technically a ...read more
Fees: a split waiting to happen
By John O'Leary | 28 May 2010
Nuclear power, voting reform, capital gains – one by one, the areas of tension within the coalition have come to the surface. But no one mentions higher ...read more
Budget reprieve for universities
By John O'Leary | 28 March 2010
Universities were among the last-minute beneficiaries in last week’s Budget of better-than-expected Government borrowing figures. Only seven days before the Chancellor came up with 20,000 ...read more
Review can lead to stable funding
By David Willetts | 25 January 2010
It is no secret that whoever wins the next election, public spending is going to have to be cut. Ed Balls has pledged that education ...read more
Hopes of the man in the middle
By John O'Leary | 24 January 2010
He is the man in the middle, caught between cost-cutting ministers and angry vice-chancellors. As the chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for ...read more
Universities must rely less on the state as purse-strings tighten
By David Lammy | 23 January 2010
Every so often, higher education in England undergoes a revolution. Usually, that is closely linked to how universities are funded. It happened in 1919 when ...read more
By Chris Brady | 19 January 2010
Until very recently, the private sector’s involvement in the higher education sector has been peripheral in the UK. By contrast, the USA and China have ...read more
Mixed messages for universities
By Peter Scott | 19 January 2010
One of my most treasured possessions is the rather crackly cassette of an interview I did with the French historian Fernand Braudel in Paris not ...read more
By John O'Leary | 10 November 2009
After nearly two years of discussion and delays, the Government’s “framework” for higher education has been published and a review of fees and student finance ...read more
By John O'Leary | 6 October 2009
Some higher education institutions are exhibiting “chronic and continuing problems in the quality of learning and teaching”. Who says so? Not the MPs whose select ...read more