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 […]
In a letter to the Financial Times, University Alliance CEO Vanessa Wilson talks about what’s missing in the conversations about the current challenges facing the higher education sector. “Robert Shrimsley’s piece on the crisis in higher education (Opinion, January 18) summarises the financial challenges facing universities in England well. There’s something missing however in the […]
The 2023 TEF submissions have been published but, as Jim Dickinson and David Kernohan observed on WonkHE, “there’s no way any human is going to read all of them”. I have however read the institutional narratives from the 14 English members of University Alliance (16 of the UK’s leading professional and technical universities) and have […]
It’s been another whirlwind year for the higher education sector – and a successful one for the Alliance. These are my reflections on a few of the stand-out moments from 2023. 1. ‘Must do better’: the House of Lord’s Industry and Regulators Committee reviews the OfS We kicked off the year by working with our […]
Responding to the release of the UCAS sector level end-of-cycle data today, University Alliance CEO Vanessa Wilson said: On the drop in acceptances for nursing courses: “Whilst it is heartening to see acceptances are up 2% for midwifery courses, it is worrying that acceptances for nursing courses are down 11% on 2022 levels. The future of […]
Pandemic learnings As the public Covid-19 inquiry grinds painfully on, it is appropriate for us in the Higher Education sector to conduct a little reflection of our own. There is much about lockdown life we all want to forget: the grim headlines, the concern for our loved ones and ourselves, the questionable Netflix binges and […]
In response to the Home Office’s announcement on legal migration restrictions, University Alliance CEO Vanessa Wilson said: “Targeting international students through threats to graduate work visas shows a failure to recognise both public opinion and the economic reality. Research by Public First has shown that only 9% of the general public think that international students […]
University Alliance have responded to the consultation for the People, Culture and Environment element of the Research Excellence Framework. See the full submission here.
“Orkney is a unique archipelago of islands, regularly ranked as one of the best places to live in the UK. But its appeal is much greater than this. Orkney has an entrepreneurial and innovative culture which lends itself to testing new and varied ideas. As an island group, it offers variety through its mix of […]
Ahead of the Autumn statement, University Alliance has warned the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt of ‘serious financial challenges’ that present a significant risk of ‘a two-tier university system emerging’. Vanessa Wilson, CEO of University Alliance wrote to the Chancellor suggesting several low-cost or cost-neutral policies to ensure professional and technical universities can continue to excel in […]
