Author

Dr Alec Charles

Press, PR & Comms Officer, QAA

30 July: HE Professional publishes the last in a series of three blogs by QAA's Tom Yates and Andy Smith looking at this month's collections of Quality Code Advice & Guidance – this time focusing on strategic quality management.

30 July: Wonkhe's Jim Dickinson covers the publication of a report on value for money from QAA's Student Strategic Advisory Committee, and report co-author Emily Bastable also blogs about it for Wonkhe.

31 July: Trailing a new Jisc report on TNE, Reading's David Carter, Jisc's Elizabeth Newall and Tabetha Newman from Timmus Research tell HEPI: "Transnational education is an increasingly prominent feature in the UK higher education landscape... Growth in the number and diversity of TNE students shows no sign of stopping. This has implications for institutional strategy and for the UK's global reputation. At the same time, it asks us to consider the quality of the TNE student experience. The 2024 HEPI report recommends practical ways to increase public understanding of the TNE student experience. These include: wider engagement with the Quality Assurance Agency’s Quality Enhancement of Transnational Education (QE-TNE) scheme; and greater use of external surveys of TNE students. Jisc’s new report focuses on the digital experience of TNE students and staff… This month’s Jisc report maintains the profile of TNE students by summarising the known digital challenges to global educational delivery from the perspective of 21 UK higher education providers. Digital is central to the success of all TNE students: whether learning in classrooms, dialling in or in asynchronous online modes of study. In every case, technology is woven throughout curriculum delivery and beyond."

28 July: Yorkshire Bylines publishes a piece from a recent AHE alumna: "A few weeks ago, I finished an Access to HE diploma in Social Science at Leeds City College, with a set of results that have brought about an offer to study Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Cambridge. This is something I could hardly have imagined growing up in a low-income household, facing significant personal and educational challenges." She adds: "Studying an Access to HE Diploma gave me the balance to learn new subject fields, develop my previous knowledge, and gain wider experience that will allow me to succeed in my future career. Without my Access course and peer mentorship, I wouldn't be on my way to Cambridge, or ready to help others do the same. It's a second chance for students who have been systematically overlooked."

30 July: THE reports that "the proportion of people studying for their first degree who come from the most deprived parts of Scotland has risen to the second highest level on record". Wonkhe's David Kernohan is "cautiously positive" about the SFC data. He adds: "Getting on is as important as getting in – so we get detail of retention for SIMD20 (86.1 per cent continue to year 2), care experience (84.9 per cent) and disabled (88.6 per cent) students. The overall retention rate for those entering in 2022-23 (the latest cohort available) was 89.5 per cent, up 1.5 percentage points on last year’s record low. The report suggests that the cost of living crisis has a disproportionate impact on the retention of SIMD20 students, and the 3 percentage point increase among these students is worthy of some small celebration given the economic headwinds."

27 July: Writing for the Telegraph, the Social Market Foundation's James Kirkup argues that the combination of the impending demographic downturn, ageing population and diminished graduate premium exacerbated by the impacts of AI mean that "instead of betting the house on teenagers, institutions should be incentivised to become centres of lifelong learning: flexible, modular and open to people at every stage of their career".

28 July: THE asks whether student-centred teaching has "gone too far". It supposes: "Marketisation and the pandemic pushed student preferences to the top of every university's teaching and learning agenda. But should those preferences be acted on even if they risk undermining educational outcomes?" It cites UCL's Rachel Wilde: "While interrogating student preferences should be 'part of the way in which we design our teaching', this should not amount to 'a one-sided demand-and-response'. Rather, teaching needs 'an ethos of partnership'." Dr Wilde adds: "We need to recognise everyone's experience and expertise… including the longstanding knowledge that higher education staff have about teaching and their subjects."

28 July: Arguing that "universities must do more to tackle male students' informal advantage", Oxford undergraduate Ava Doherty tells THE: "Particularly within male-dominated subjects, informal peer networks among men shape who is heard, deferred to and regarded as intellectually credible. These dynamics are often subtle and not necessarily exclusionary by intent, but they reinforce existing power structures. Through shared humour, cultural shorthand and assumed authority, these male networks tend to marginalise women, non-binary students and others who lack the same social cues or background. If universities are truly serious about widening access, it is high time that they confronted this barrier head-on."

28 July: Wonkhe takes a deep dive into AI. Stirling's Josh Thorpe writes: "Silicon Valley is openly pursuing artificial general intelligence, or something like that. Imagine a ChatGPT that can do your job, my job, and a big piece of the knowledge-work jobs recent graduates may hope to enter. Some insiders think this could arrive by 2027. A few weeks ago, Dario Amodai, CEO of AI company Anthropic, wrote his prediction that 50 per cent of entry-level office jobs could vanish within the next couple of years, and that unemployment overall could hit 20 per cent. This could be mostly hype or confirmation bias among the tech elite. But IBM, Klarna, and Duolingo have already cited AI-linked efficiencies in recent layoffs." While Northampton's Simon Sneddon advocates "refocusing assessments to require more creative, empathetic, adaptable and ethical skills", Jisc's Chris Rhea and MMU's Kirstin Burke add: "A focus on developing essential human skills such as creativity, critical thinking and communication remains central to learning. After all, AI doesn't just stand for artificial intelligence. It also means authentic interaction, the foundation upon which the employability experience is built."

28 July: Profiling Kaplan Pathways, The PIE notes: "September 2025 marks 20 years since Kaplan Pathways opened its first International College in partnership with Nottingham Trent University. Since then, the company has grown exponentially, with more than 25 university partners worldwide and more than 10,000 students of 124 nationalities recruited in 2024 alone." And THE reports that "a record number of Chinese applicants via UCAS for UK undergraduate courses is expected to be translated into increased applications across the board, as the country benefits from a 'stable and welcoming' reputation when contrasted with uncertainty in the US" – but observes that a dip applications from India has tempered sector optimism.

29 July: The University of Bristol announces that the Indian government has approved its plans to open a campus in Mumbai. The story is covered by THE.

30 July: Greece's Ekathimerini reveals that the Greek government is set next week to announce "the first foreign universities approved to set up branches in Athens and offer undergraduate studies" – but that "the announcement will not include the approved majors and curricula; these will be announced in early September, a month before classes are supposed to start".

28 July: Asia Careers Group's Louise Nichol tells THE: "One long-held assumption is starting to fray: that an overseas degree guarantees stronger employment outcomes for international graduates returning home. For many years, particularly across Asia, this belief underpinned the value proposition of international education. But new data suggests that this premium is beginning to erode – not because domestic education is closing the gap, but because international graduates are being left to navigate the final step of their journey alone."

29 July: AGCAS's Jeremy Swan tells Wonkhe: "Careers services today are doing far more than CV checks and advice appointments. They're innovating to meet students' real-world needs… Careers services do a fantastic job of providing tailored support for individual students, but scaling impact is no small feat when the average staff-to-student ratio in careers services is around 1:1,080. However, careers services have found one of the best ways of scaling impact across the institution is to proactively work with academics to embed employability in the curriculum." Meanwhile, Wonkhe's David Kernohan explores claims made by the Telegraph that more than 600,000 graduates are on benefits (as the paper declares that "official figures cast doubt on the value of 'Mickey Mouse' degrees"). He writes: "There probably aren't more than 600,000 graduates on Universal Credit. If there were, this would be a low proportion of the total number of graduates in the UK, and would reflect rapidly changing personal circumstances in an uncertain economy. It doesn't really tell us anything about the value of a degree, but it does tell us that the UK has a problem with low pay more generally."

29 July: Wonkhe's Jim Dickinson notes that "international graduate dissatisfaction is hitting new highs". He writes: "A cynic might argue that while international PG numbers and revenues have grown, the necessary careers support hasn't kept pace. And maybe over-theoretical curricula is looking like a major problem too. The officers we meet consistently complain that they were sold networks that are never facilitated, leadership experience that is hard to come by, placement-finding support that never materialises, and a student experience that is brutally punishing once cost-of-living realities hit home. Regardless of inflation hikes or changes in immigration policy, these are the sorts of perceptions that both circulate and resonate within students' home countries. Most of those we speak to know that they are helping to subsidise home students' education. They reasonably just want and need a little more of the fees they pay spent on them."

30 July: Wonkhe's Jim Dickinson considers the impacts of unpaid internships and paid-for placements: "In an ideal world, the government's 'make work pay' agenda should apply to all workers, including students. If public services or businesses value the work that students provide during their placements, it's time to pay them for it rather than expecting them to subsidise their own 'training'. If not, the very least the government could do is ensure that its maintenance loan arrangements are equivalent to the National Minimum Wage, that international students are properly warned about the total costs of study, and that students' out-of-pocket expenses (whether home or international) are covered."

30 July: Reed's James Reed tells City AM: "In the past, it's been taken as given that a university degree will result in a higher net income over the course of a career, making attendance something of a no brainer. But Reed's data shows the number of graduate jobs is shrinking, thanks in part to the advance of AI and the tendency to offshore entry-level jobs. According to our latest figures, the number of jobs specifically targeted at graduates has fallen from seven per cent of the total advertised on Reed.co.uk seven years ago to just four per cent now... More than half of the people that go to university now end up in jobs that don't require a degree. That's an awful lot of disappointed people. It seems clear that the advantages, for them at least, are not what they used to be… If you want to be an accountant these days, it's quite possible to get an entry-level position and qualify on the job, saving yourself a lot of time and expense. Green jobs, which are a huge growth area, don't require a degree... Construction is going to boom as we build more houses, and there are many related trades that don't require degrees. The problem is a lot of these jobs may not be ones that soft, middle-class hands want to do. We might need a major social reset to equip the next generation for the jobs of the future."

29 July: Wonkhe's Jim Dickinson considers the impact of inflation on students and concludes that "there is a very real risk now of student poverty – students making impossible choices having, to some extent, been misled into believing that their participation would be affordable". Meanwhile, TechnologyOne's Cheryl Watson tells HEPI: "Students are making tough choices daily between travel, food, work, and study. Financial stress is changing not just what students can afford, but also how they experience university life on a day-to-day basis. While pressures vary, the underlying theme remains consistent: rising costs are reshaping the student experience in real-time… Financial stress is no longer a fringe issue in UK higher education. When 30% of students are taking on extra debt just to cover essentials, and many are skipping classes or missing out on key experiences, the impacts on retention, well-being, and academic outcomes cannot be ignored. The disconnect between what students need and what current funding models assume continues to grow. Part-time work and family contributions are often treated as standard, despite being unrealistic for many students."

25 July: THE reports that "some English universities will receive millions of pounds less from the government in grant income than they did last year, following the decision to cut funding for high-cost subjects and student support". Wonkhe's David Kernohan notes that "the unit of resource (the amount of funding allocated by fundable student FTE) has fallen below £1,000 for the first time since the OfS was established (using 2024-25 prices) – 30 per cent down on 2018-19 and the HEFCE legacy".

30 July: THE covers warnings that "a lack of career progression within UK universities is 'demoralising' staff and threatening to push people out of the sector… as institutions respond to the financial crisis by freezing promotions and concentrating hiring on lower-level positions".

25 July: THE reports that "some English universities will receive millions of pounds less from the government in grant income than they did last year, following the decision to cut funding for high-cost subjects and student support". Wonkhe's David Kernohan notes that "the unit of resource (the amount of funding allocated by fundable student FTE) has fallen below £1,000 for the first time since the OfS was established (using 2024-25 prices) – 30 per cent down on 2018-19 and the HEFCE legacy".

30 July: THE covers warnings that "a lack of career progression within UK universities is 'demoralising' staff and threatening to push people out of the sector… as institutions respond to the financial crisis by freezing promotions and concentrating hiring on lower-level positions".

31 July: A new report from HEPI shows a "catastrophic decline" in language studies, with undergraduate enrolments down 20 per cent in five years and with less than three per cent of A levels taken in 2024 being in language subjects. THE covers the news of this "vicious cycle of language degree cuts and declining enrolments". RPN notes its "knock-on effects on research".