Two interesting points in this blog: the Jarrett Report is blamed for a decline in the credibility of HE governance (it was 40 years ago) and that restoring the title of ‘University Registrar’ would ‘signify a focus on integrity and ethical governance’. www.hepi.ac.uk/2026/07/09/p...

Focus on early years in Bridget Phillipson’s keynote at Ruskin - a comprehensive education from birthplace to workplace. On HE, it’s wonderful that there’s much more access but it’s not felt evenly, plus there needs to be parity of esteem across academic and technical routes.

Hello delayrepay, my old friend I've come to talk with you again…

University Title News. OfS have decided to approve the title ‘Norland University of Early Childhood’. The college currently runs a BA and MA in early childhood. www.officeforstudents.org.uk/publications...

This is a very welcome report from William Whyte focusing on the community side of residence. Both the NUS and UGC were keen to see more residential life in British universities in the middle of the 20th century, but we have lost track on both how and why. www.hepi.ac.uk/reports/movi...

A nice piece for a concert on 4 July is Ives Variations on ‘America’ where the “My Country, 'Tis of Thee” theme has a different resonance here.

Admitting people to their degrees by tapping them on the head is a feature of Scottish graduations, but it’s unclear how Edinburgh are adapting their ceremony. Of course, the provenance of the hat is also an issue here. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A @houseoflords.parliament.uk debate on higher education is always worth engaging with, although there’s a tendency towards supporting the elite end of the sector. Baroness Deech opening the debate by calling for more hierarchy: even so far as a return to Polytechnics.

The Telegraph started 2026 in very much the way it wanted to go on: coverage of a report on woke universities. Except; the report explaining that 1% of students were on “woke courses” still hasn’t been published six months on. moremeansbetter.wordpress.com/2026/01/17/t...

OfS register news - one new provider. Westminster Theological Centre is Registered - fee cap. It offers a PT BA and MA in kingdom theology, based in Cheltenham but delivered through hub churches. This is the first new registration since Sept 25 (also intrigued by empty rows in the spreadsheet)

History of higher education puts change into perspective. The rise of new technologies can be overstated; here Prof AJ Grant notes that printing didn’t eliminate teaching and neither will new innovations. This is 1930 and he’s referring to the claims made about radio. #histed

If you are making a list of 40 readily implementable things for English higher education, there’s loads of reasons you wouldn’t put student number controls first. Mostly, the time is not ripe for student number controls. moremeansbetter.wordpress.com/2026/06/23/t...

Here’s an eye-catching package from a Liberal Arts College in Washington. “You won’t pay more than 10% of your family’s income toward tuition”. The systems are utterly different, but you have to admire the simplicity. www.whitman.edu/admission-an...

Another ‘serial vice-chancellor’. York cements its role as a training university as another leader goes off to an older civic university. moremeansbetter.wordpress.com/2016/12/01/s...

There’s a plethora of frameworks, conditions, advice and guidance from the OfS, here @smitajamdar.bsky.social & @registrarism.bsky.social sensibly call for it to be sorted out. Reminder of how you could regulate half the HE sector, mostly through one handbook (there was PCFC too).

Maybe this is just the point we are at, but the topics on the podcast were tough this week. How should autonomous universities engage with the opportunity issue we have as a country, while government makes discouraging noises? wonkhe.com/blogs/podcas...

Train stuck outside Didcot, but affords a fine view of this data centre. It’s built like a medieval castle - there are two rows of walls and it has ramparts and on one side there’s even a moat. Maybe the computing power in there could make the signals work…

Several HE providers which were charities have sold their operating function to a for-profit outfit. It’s likely that this route will come under a lot more scrutiny after the fall-out at City & Guilds. feweek.co.uk/city-guild-f...

Important report highlights that there are major geographical differences. There’s an impact for HE providers; there was a welcome tweak in the way that OfS will look at benchmarks in the TEF which will recognise that there are differences just from where a university is.

OfS degree awarding powers news. The Power to Award Degrees etc. (New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering) (Amendment) Order 2026 amends the 2023 Order by extending it one year. Presumably still limited to this subject list (OfS now just uses broader subject codes)

It’s fair to say that the student finance system can often be misunderstood. This demand that parents should be ‘guarantors’ for loans is a wilful misrepresentation of the system. Although there might be something in having parents pay off those plan 5 loans after 40 years…

Second crane going up to help build the new Vaccinology Centre at the Old Road Campus. Construction continues to 2028, so it’s good they are getting on with it (but early on Sunday morning?)

One of the great misapprehensions is that all fees for university courses are c£9k. Plenty of places advertise a very different fee. When TEF allows a variation of fee cap, how will this actually play out in advertising?

It’s important to test the premise in this piece that UCAS is a matching service focused on grades. It’s also not helpful to apply the measures available to the mobile middle classes (who might chose between Exeter & LSE on the basis of future earnings) to all. www.hepi.ac.uk/2026/06/13/w...

This may seem like a detail, but if you write a ‘brief history of UK higher education’ then you can’t briefly mention the founding of some Scottish and Welsh universities and then truncate the rest of the story at devolution. And you have to include Ireland. #Histed

Here I contrast the proposed new condition on treating students fairly with the 1993 Charter for Higher Education. There’s a similarity in approach, but somehow we’ve got to the stage we now need to regulate HE providers from posting fake reviews. moremeansbetter.wordpress.com/2026/06/09/a...

A fair fees campaign says that student loans are ‘uniquely unfair’ - but hasn’t got a plan beyond that; just wants to have a campaign.

Clinical UG international fees are high, but at Cambridge all other UG fees are less than at, say, Winchester College. These feature in the cheery FT HTSI supplement (alongside other reassuringly expensive items)

This is right: the logic of the LLE has finally delivered parity in funding for accelerated degrees. The LLE might also allow some students to create their own accelerated courses - but many universities have moved away from their more open modular programmes. wonkhe.com/blogs/the-ll...

MPs asking questions on the Milburn Review - the 50% target on HE participation continues to live on in some heads despite having been repeatedly ‘abolished’. Here the target is rendered into an obsession by Reform’s education spokesperson.

OfS degree awarding powers news. From 1 July Academy of Live Technology will have time-limited power to award taught degrees up to masters level in five subject areas. When ALT first joined the register it was called ‘Backstage Academy’, its UK campus is in West Yorkshire.

Big community event in Headington today with the return of the festival, aided by it feeling like mid-August rather than the last day of Spring. Always good to see University engagement teams at these events.

Dear politicians Future of the economy needs B. It happens in universities. A is not some alternative to B, and university does not only consist of D. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

OfS has approved the name ‘London and South East University Group’ for Greenwich. 90% of the respondents to the consultation said the new name is, or has the potential to be, confusing. DfE has added that the trading names must add ‘part of LASEUG’ www.officeforstudents.org.uk/publications...

Your biannual reminder that while Oxford is a global knowledge hub, it is also a collection of mad villages. Here Headington Quarry is joined by Summertown in a Whit Monday Morris dancing tour.

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.