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The latest announcements, press releases and media coverage from University Alliance.

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  1. University Alliance responds to Sutton Trust’s report on reforming student maintenance

    Today (21 March), The Sutton Trust released their latest report ‘Reforming Student Maintenance’. The report features modelling from London Economics and recommends: the reintroduction of maintenance grants; for wider eligibility for support by increasing parental income thresholds; increasing the overall amount of maintenance available; changing the repayment terms of the loan to make the system […]

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  2. University Alliance responds to the Office for Students’ free speech complaints scheme consultation

    University Alliance has published their response to the Office for Students’ consultation on their free speech complaints scheme. Summary The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 requires the Office for Students (OfS) to operate a free speech complaints scheme. It is imperative that this new scheme runs as effectively and efficiently as possible, ensuring […]

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  3. UA’s asks ahead of the Spring Budget

    Addressing the immediate challenges facing our universities and their students  UK universities now incur losses of £6bn annually on their core activities of research and teaching for UK home students. Our members are making significant changes to adjust to financial pressures, including major restructuring and transformation programmes. Recent analysis by PwC demonstrates that all universities […]

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  4. University groups call for cross-government health education taskforce

    With the latest UCAS data showing applications are down for medicine, nursing and midwifery courses, leaders from the higher education sector are calling for a new taskforce to effectively deliver NHS England’s Long-Term Workforce Plan. In a jointly-written letter sent to the Secretaries of State for Education and Health, a coalition of university mission groups […]

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  5. University Alliance responds to the latest UCAS application data

    Vanessa Wilson, CEO of University Alliance, has commented in response to the latest UCAS application data, released today (15 January): On the decline of applications for public sector workforce courses, Vanessa Wilson, CEO of University Alliance, said: “The continued decline in applications for subjects like teaching, nursing and midwifery spell trouble for the future of […]

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  6. Letter to the Times: “Nurses’ research time needs to be protected too”

    In a letter to the The Times, University Alliance CEO Vanessa Wilson responds to the Times’ Health Commission. ‘Sir, The ten recommendations of The Times Health Commission are timely, necessary and sensible. Your ninth point makes the case for NHS staff to take part in research, proposing that 20 per cent of hospital consultants and […]

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  7. UA briefing on international students

    International student numbers have been growing in the UK as part of a government strategy to grow education export income for the UK, provide financial sustainability for universities without increasing the contribution of taxpayers or UK students, and ensure our country remains globally connected. Universities have supported this strategy both because we believe in the power of […]

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  8. Universities, the NHS, and health workforce transformation

    This article was originally published in Wonkhe. Working alongside the NHS requires universities to constantly be adapting. The relationship between universities and the health and social care sector can be described as evolutionary. For decades, nurses were trained directly on wards, with schools of nursing traditionally hosted by individual hospitals. Training began to move towards […]

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  9. Changes to student maintenance loans: UA’s response

    On Thursday 25 January, the government announced that maintenance loan payments would rise by 2.5% from September 2024 for students in England. On Friday 26th, the Department for Education released its Equality Impact Assessment for HE student finance in 2024/25, which looked at the impact of the proposed changes. In our latest briefing, we highlight […]

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