One of my Phd students is studying how parents make decisions about education for their children (you can participate in his survey here). We economists treat this as a problem of investment under uncertainty…
Freedom of speech is at the heart of academic life and a university should be a place where every issue is discussed and debated. Not so, according to the findings presented in the first ever Freedom of…
As debates continue over the number of foreign students in the UK, there have been accusations from business leaders that the government’s policy of including students in the net migration target has been…
We were told that the 2012 changes to England’s student funding system would boost the number of part-time students at university. But new data released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency confirm…
With the shock from the Paris terrorist attacks barely diminished, attention in a number of Western capitals is understandably fixated on counter-terrorism. Politicians are focused on the question of how…
In his anthemic Let me entertain you, Robbie Williams urges his audience to “come and sing a different song”. University lecturers could take a lesson or two from Stoke-on-Trent’s favourite singer-songwriter…
Many years ago, I asked an MBA student from far beyond these shores if people in his country understood that he was studying at a post-1992 university rather than the much older and more prestigious one…
With Christmas not far off, universities will be hoping for some early presents in the form of good results in the UK’s long-awaited assessment of the quality of university research. Although the funding…
The domination of top British universities by people who have attended private schools remains controversial. Defenders of the status quo would argue that successful applicants to Russell Group universities…
The coalition is ploughing ahead with its plan to give schools more control of training new teachers. A recent announcement of government-funded places on teacher training courses for the next academic…
Bringing together great academic minds and diverse perspectives from different disciplines can transform university research. A recent project at Durham University called “Hearing the Voice” challenges…
The way that newcomers are initiated into a group can reveal a lot about that group’s values. So what does the sexist ditty recently chanted by freshers students at the University of Nottingham tell us…
From the “best beaches” to the “best slice of pizza” to the best hospital to have cardiac surgery in, we are inundated with a seemingly never-ending series of reports ranking everything that can be ranked…
Asian universities continue to stun the academic world. In just one year, four more have joined the ranks of the world’s top 200 universities. Now, almost one eighth of the world’s top 200 universities…
Over the next few weeks there will be many nervous people across the country ready to embark upon a new chapter in life: university. For many young people going to university means moving away from home…
Think of a university, any university. Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard or Yale may spring to mind. Or your local university, or the one you or someone you know attended. I’m fairly sure that the University…
International orientation weeks for new overseas students are looming for universities across the UK. At all our international airports you will soon see welcoming parties assembling to meet and greet…
In the current rush to achieve the highest student satisfaction and best positions on university league tables we are at significant risk of dumbing down what’s being taught at universities. At both traditional…
You’ve got your A Level results and things are not how you imagined they would be. Maybe you didn’t do as well as you thought you would. Or maybe you didn’t think you wanted to go to university but now…