Fantastic lecture from Prof Georgina Brewis on the public and popular history of university students. Showed how this has changed across the 20th century, but also how the methodology of doing that history has changed - now rooted in oral and material histories #UCL200 #IOELectures

More from @natsecsoc.bsky.social on questions that OfS aren’t answering about providers who governing documents actually do chill free speech and academic freedom. As they’ve not had an answer from the notifications process, they’re off to court. www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/why-...

OfS degree awarding powers news: a two year extension to the DAPs for Richmond, the American International University in London. A question I continue to have is why is Richmond is allowed to use university title when it doesn’t have indefinite DAPs?

Josh Fleming writes that the OfS wants the sector to ‘have clarity on the regulatory environment in which they operate’, so they won’t appeal the outcome judicial review of their investigation into Sussex on freedom of speech. www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/why-...

Among the LLE news today is the guidance on standardised transcripts. Focused on issuing for each ‘module’ (which DfE use to refer to the stand-alone 30 credit offering) there’s some challenges - such as an assumption that modules will be from the same parent course. www.gov.uk/government/p...

OfS register news: one less provider. The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust has voluntarily left the register as it has ‘merged with North London NHS foundation and no longer delivers HE’. In 24/25 there were 310 FT & 720 PT PG students taught or registered at this provider.

HESA finance data published this week contains the head of provider remuneration table. At the highest end are the heads of multi-billion turnover research intensive universities and the highly competitive business/social science schools. And some of the for-profit providers.

Naturally the Red Route/L10 corridor is first on Paul’s list of outstanding features of UK HE; but to think of it as a long corridor is to miss how magnificent it is from the outside. (Photos from Simon Phipps’s brilliant Brutal North book)

The OfS warns against over-optimism. If you were thinking of being optimistic about the finances of English higher education, there’s a report here for you: www.officeforstudents.org.uk/news-blog-an...

It’s exactly 25 years since the last football match at the old Manor Ground in Headington. As part of an ongoing tribute to the old ground, Oxfordshire have maintained a controlled parking zone system that stops people parking 2-4 on Saturday afternoons. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Peter Scott argues that a policy of il est bon de tuer de temps en temps une Université pour encourager les autres is no way to run a higher education regulator. www.hepi.ac.uk/2026/05/11/f...

OfS provider news. Global University Systems, through a joint venture with Brightstar Capital Partners, has acquired Study Group’s academic operations. news.sky.com/story/mark-k...

The celebration of David Attenborough’s birthday today has included media teams posting photos of a panoply of academic dress of higher doctorates of British universities.

It’s nice to see a northern powerhouse adopt quaint traditions just like a southern teacher training college did.

Sites of former HEIs: a series. Lady Mabel College, an emergency teacher training college. It merged with Sheffield City Polytechnic in the 1970s and teaching stopped at Wentworth Woodhouse in 1986.

At Firth Hall - ceremonial hub and concert venue. This had been dissertation deadline week, so great to see happy students enjoying their last concert.

You can visit the former sites of HEIs, but you can also find remnants of former identities in the university library. The books themselves carry the names of predecessor colleges. moremeansbetter.wordpress.com/2026/05/02/a...

There’s an HE policy announcement from Reform but am struggling to find the detail. The video conflates different types of ‘foreign’ students; those who already have settled status and those being sponsored for a visa. Apparently fewer of them (?) will save money.

So, farewell to commuting to the South West. No more awful connections with hanging about in Didcot. No more contemplating why it’s cheaper to go Oxford to Bristol Parkway than Didcot to Bristol Parkway. Next week: commuting to the furthest reaches of the South East.

The OIA Annual Report highlights the problem with the DET course. Brit College's 2024 abridged accounts said it had £1m in cash but it refused to refund and compensate students who could not get the qualification they had signed up for. The college is now in administration.

An interesting day ahead for the regulation of higher education in England. Judgement on the University of Sussex case: on freedom of speech but also on governance.

DfE spotted a problem with the Diploma in Education & Training course, got Ofsted to do some inspections, digested those, removed the course's eligibility for funding and changed who could train FE lecturers. Now OfS is doing a retrospective review. www.officeforstudents.org.uk/news-blog-an...

Today the Power to Award Degrees etc (Spurgeon’s College) (Revocation) Order 2026 comes into force. It’s the first time OfS has removed DAPs for a provider that’s actually exercised them. Brief update to this blog on DAPs and their possible transfer. moremeansbetter.wordpress.com/2025/11/05/w...

Fantastic to be in Durham for @burgonsociety.bsky.social spring conference. Academic dress is interesting in its own right, but it illuminates much about university history, including the development of subjects and perceived hierarchies between them. #histed

Former sites of HEIs: a series. Darlington College of Education, 1872-1978. It focused on nursery education. Building became an arts centre, but is now flats. Has a good institutional history by the then Principal Olive Stanton, ‘Our Present Opportunities’ published in 1966

Plenary celebrating the work of Professor Claire Calendar - a focus on the funding of HE. Hearing of her contribution to forcing the issue of PT students into the policy sphere and the understanding of the impact of debt on the lived experience of graduates. Timely with the Plan 2 debate.

This is an excellent discussion on the attractiveness of a graduate tax - of course @jonathansimons.bsky.social is right. Everyone who has looked at this has rejected it. It’s simply not viable.

Ahead of questions in Parliament, DfE confirms that they will commence some more parts of the HE(FoS) Act - allowing staff, visiting speakers etc to complain to OfS. A scheme was consulted on before by OfS so presumably they exhume that. questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-stat...

The Charity Commission should take a view on whether a charity should be allowed to sell its operating arm. There are particular issues about C&G, but this has implications for the conversion of charitable HE providers into for-profit variants. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Do we plan new higher education provision properly? I found a presentation from my first visit to UWE in 2009 which highlights various schemes with a spatial planning theme - some more successful than others. How will the newly announced TECs fare? moremeansbetter.wordpress.com/2026/04/16/m...

It’s a mistake for DfE to render the LLE into a cash figure rather than credits. Every year the LLE will change and modules taken in the past will have weird values. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/degree-...

Do ‘Bible Colleges’ meet the public interest governance principles on academic freedom and freedom of speech as required in OfS Condition E1? @natsecsoc.bsky.social writes to @houseoflords.parliament.uk Industry & Regulators Committee. committees.parliament.uk/publications...

A weekend of celebrations of pedestrianisation and low traffic neighbourhoods in Oxford (masquerading as a folk festival). Even has proper April showers.

Former sites of HE providers: a series. The former orphan houses at Ashley Down founded by George Müller were used by the college that split becoming Bath University and Bristol Polytechnic. Part of West of England College of Art was also here. Now used as housing & City of Bristol College.

OfS degree awarding powers news: two orders for Spurgeon’s College will be revoked from 27 April 2026. Spurgeon’s is in administration, it had facilitated 132 students to transfer after its sudden closure, but has left the register.

This is an interesting set of responses from @tom-richmond.com to the charge that some HE providers are taking excessive risks. Some suggested interventions are targeted and proportional, others just provoking. Good to have the debate though… www.hepi.ac.uk/reports/a-de...

Sites of former HE providers: a series. The building for St Peter’s College was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott. The Church of England closed it twice; it was reopened by the ministry in 1945 as an emergency teacher training college but closed again. The site is just outside the Close.

Sites of former HE providers: a series. In 1335 the regulator (Edward III) suppressed the University of Stamford. Masters of Arts at Oxford continued to swear not to teach at any other university in England except Cambridge and specifically not Stamford until 1827. #Histed

While it’s possible for a government to do two things at once, it does seem extraordinary that the US government has turned its attention to the money being spent on College football. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

More on the potential sale of the University of Buckingham’s operation to a for-profit company. There’s a fine piece of mischief in here - the picture used is of the former Crewe campus - an utterly disastrous initiative. thecritic.co.uk/asset-stripp...

Our biggest concern must be for genuine students caught in this problem. But, as Jim notes, have DfE/SLC made an assumption that many aren’t genuine? They have the numbers from cases such as ABA, Brit & OBC - is that why? And then, what happens when the college goes bust? wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/...

Sites of former HEIs: Wesley College, Bristol. An example of planned consolidation, the Methodist Church bought a new site in 1946, selling other colleges and amalgamating them. But costs were too high and the college was closed (see archived website) now a retirement home.

There's a lot of very sound advice in this @lseheblog.bsky.social podcast - doing HE mergers for strategically sound reasons is the best option - they are not a way of saving money in the short term. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Outcomes-based regulation has failed to maintain what Sir David Watson called the ‘controlled reputational range’. Here @jimdickinson.bsky.social joins the dots - the picture is a group of for-profit providers (mostly franchising) making a lot of money. wonkhe.com/blogs/regula...

Another reminder of the wide world of higher education - at Euston yesterday saw people with these distinctive bright green scarves. Awards from CNM in herbal medicine, homeopathy and nutrition at ceremony in Friends House. m.youtube.com/watch?v=HZtv...

Former sites of HEIs: a series. The shared home of the LCC Central School and the London Day Training College. Opened by Lord Rosebery in 1907, the LDTC had moved from sharing with Northampton Institute. It later moved to Senate House then Bedford Way. #UCL200 #Histed

Here’s another problem arising from franchising - students who were promised they could study just at the weekend only shouldn’t have been eligible for FT maintenance loans. www.politicshome.com/news/article...

Nice to see @ukri.org explaining its role at Swindon railway station. Posters may be old school advertising, but this campaign explains the difference that research makes to lives. www.ukri.org/news-and-eve...

Another FE merger brings the number of registered providers down to 425. Exeter College has merged with North Devon College and so Petroc has come off the register. The college uses the name 'University Centre for Northern Devon' but it's not listed as trading name by OfS.

We now have measures from OfS and DfE to protect public money by strengthening oversight of partnership delivery. But, if some partnerships with non-genuine students close, where will the money go? A blog on precedents: moremeansbetter.wordpress.com/2026/03/24/w...