Liam Byrne: we need to put higher education at centre stage of policy
From new technical universities to a postgraduate loan, Claire Shaw talks to shadow universities minister about Labours plan for the sectorUnis could get cash for every poor student, says LabourLabour...
View ArticleUniversity reforms are no laughing matter students need our support
Australian government displays a shockingly dismissive attitude towards students concerns, says our anonymous academicStudents in Australia have been protesting about a new higher education bill that...
View ArticleUniversities minister Greg Clark rules out increasing tuition fees
Universities minister says he is not persuaded by the argument for raising fees to take into account increased costsUniversities minister Greg Clark has ruled out increasing tuition fees and making...
View ArticleWhy Greg Clarks silence on tuition fees could backfire
The universities minister is refusing to reveal Conservative plans on tuition fees and overseas students. This provides an opportunity for Labour to make the running on higher education...
View ArticleSix Russell Group universities reject government loans for postgrad study
Think tank’s proposal for £10,000 state loan wouldn’t help students from less well-off backgrounds, UK universities argueA consortium representing six of the country’s top universities has urged the...
View ArticleThe self-funded master's student: your stories
We speak to students about how they paid for their master’s course and ask if a state postgraduate loan would have made a difference• Would a postgraduate loan have help you with your studies? Vote in...
View ArticleUK universities – it's time to go to India
In five year's time, India will have the largest number of students enrolled in higher education. The UK can't sit back, it must go to India, urges reportUK universities must go to India if they are to...
View ArticleUniversity education: a £10k salary boost for the price of three flat whites?...
Responses to Aditya Chakraborrtty’s article on ‘mis-sold and overhyped’ universities that are ‘just a con’Aditya Chakrabortty’s piece is absolutely right (Mis-sold and overhyped: our universities are...
View ArticleUniversity grade inflation under the spotlight | Letters
Readers respond as ministers promise to address concerns over the growing number of first-class degreesI am a professor at a Russell group university with 27 years’ experience of teaching and...
View ArticleA bankrupt university was inevitable once market forces took hold | Anne Perkins
Demand is down, supply is up – something had to give and now universities are on the brink. It’s all so avoidableThe decade-long experiment in turning universities into market-driven businesses whose...
View ArticleHigher education reform is our priority | Letter from Robert Halfon MP
The cross-party education select committee firmly believes that if students are going to take on the big burden of a loan, there must surely be a good graduate job at the end of it, writes Robert...
View ArticleI am no product of privilege | Letter from Michael Meadowcroft
Michael Meadowcroft takes issue with a reference to him in a previous letter regarding tuition feesCatherine Davies makes the mistake of failing to check facts before trying to make a personal example...
View ArticleTime to call the non-EU doctor | Letters
Alison Garnham isdistressed about Brexit and the ‘hostile environment’ policy. Prof Peter Ekkehard Kopp addresses immigration panicStanding on a tube platform, Miriam González Durántez’s article (May...
View Article‘An education arms race’: inside the ultra-competitive world of private tutoring
A growing number of parents and guardians are paying for children as young as four to receive additional tuition. What is fuelling this booming industry?As dusk falls in the Girlington district of...
View ArticleSocial mobility tsar warns cuts to tuition fees may not help poorest students
Martina Milburn says her commission will look at reviving maintenance grantsCutting university tuition fees risks failing to help the young people most in need of help to access higher education,...
View ArticleWho’s the minister who could kill or save a university? Oh dear, a...
Chris Skidmore believes in the smallest possible state. Is he going to rescue higher education from market meltdown?We are now on our third universities minister since the Conservatives shed their...
View ArticleTuition fees undid Paddy Ashdown’s achievements | Letters
The former Lib Dem leader was against free university education, says Nigel Boddy, and John Marriott remembers him as a thoroughly decent manPaddy Ashdown once said when criticising the EU: “When...
View ArticleThe Observer view on a graduate tax being the fairest way to pay for...
The proposed multi-tier system of tuition fees would result in poorer students being deterred from the sciencesFour in five young people who go to university will end up repaying 9p of every pound they...
View ArticleUniversity chiefs angry over ‘elitist’ student loan plans
Proposals to bar students without three Ds at A-level would hit courses such as nursing and ‘strike at heart of social mobility’The heads of UK universities have reacted angrily to leaked proposals...
View ArticleCutting tuition fees will turn universities into vassals of the state | Simon...
Lowering the cost of degrees will devastate university budgets. The state will bail them out – in exchange for more controlMeanwhile, back at the ranch – or in this case the campus – the mice are...
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