When it comes to social mobility, the goalposts are always moving. As access to any given level of education becomes more common, inequalities tend to move upwards, with those from better-off backgrounds seeking to keep their advantages. While access to undergraduate degrees has been improving, with more and more young people going onto…

With recent changes in how UK higher education is funded, universities are operating in a context in which finances are uncertain. It is more important than ever that university leaders are able to manage the finances of their organisations in ways which both provide long-term security and allow for investment in strategically important…

In the current and foreseeable harsh UK higher education environment, aspiring to best-practice financial management will be key to ensuring the prosperity--and indeed the survival--of any university. In this article I argue that good university financial management should provide stability to the institution, allow for investment as well as…

In this paper, we consider lessons for other countries about the design of student loans with income-contingent repayments (i.e. repayments calculated as "x" per cent of each borrower's subsequent income). Using a dataset of 20,000 simulated lifetime graduate earnings paths, we estimate the cost and distributional effects of reforms in…

This white paper analyzes the potential effects of requiring income-driven repayment for all federal loans as well as relying on paycheck withholding for loan payments, with particular attention to the implications for low-income students and families. The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) also examines the relevance and evolution…

The focus of this paper is the coalition United Kingdom government policy on university funding in England as a political economy. It depicts higher education as a public and private good in the context of international trends in "cost sharing" and it addresses the centrality of economic drivers for the profile and orientation of higher…

The introduction of the new tuition fee regime in the UK academic session 2012-2013 has resulted in concerns in the Higher Education (HE) community that students' expectations may become unmanageable. Previous research has explored the expectations and experiences of undergraduate psychology students; the current study extended this by considering…

This guide is primarily aimed at skills providers for unemployed adults, but will also be of interest to learning providers that wish to engage micro-businesses for the purpose of delivering other forms of provision such as apprenticeships and work-based learning through full cost recovery. The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education…

Not for the first time in its history, the UK Higher Education sector finds itself in a position of significant financial constraint. The current coalition Government's actions to address the budget deficit have led to sweeping cuts across many public sector departments, but it is higher education that has seen the most draconian reduction in…

The further education (FE) and skills sector has known for months that far less tax-payer money will be available for skills in the future. This means that more training will have to be paid for by those who directly benefit. The government's skills strategy is intended to mark a new era for FE and skills, based upon increased contributions from…

Reflecting the changing ideological and economic perspectives of the government of the day, the expansion of higher education in England has prompted numerous reforms aimed at reshaping and restructuring the sector and its funding. Leading to student riots and sparking some of the sharpest controversies in British higher education the reforms…

Understanding how policy can affect university education is important for understanding how governments can promote human capital accumulation. This paper exploits historic changes to university funding policies in the UK to estimate the impact of tuition fees and maintenance grants on university participation. Previous work on this, which largely…

The government is consulting the sector on a new skills strategy and a simplified funding system for further education (FE). Some of the leading players were asked what they made of the government's vision and what they would like to see in the strategy. Brendan Barber warns that spending cuts will undermine many of the positive proposals in the…

With 6 billion British pounds of public spending reductions already on the table, and far deeper cuts inevitable, what are the prospects for adult learning in the new Parliament? Some of the regular contributors of this journal were asked what they expected and what they would like to see. Ewart Keep warns that the coalition parties' commitments…

The British system of student loans has a zero real rate of interest, less than it costs the government to borrow the money. This paper discusses the problems that arise from interest subsidies in the UK system of student loans; systems in other countries, for example Australia and New Zealand, face similar problems. The topic appears to be narrow…