The dust seems to be settling on many of the reforms announced in last year's HE white paper but one topic still seems to get backs up: the perceived privatisation of HE and the growing number of private institutions.
Ministers have introduced a system of "due diligence checks" for private higher education providers, it has emerged, as new figures show that the number of their students accessing state-funded loans has nearly doubled in a year.
A scheme to fund more student places at private universities is under fire after the Universities minister, David Willetts, admitted that no checks are made on whether undergraduates complete their course.
The document also confirms that plans for further education colleges and private institutions to be subject to tight controls on the number of students – funded through Government-backed loans – that each one can recruit.
Private higher education providers in Britain are to compete directly with public universities for undergraduate places for the first time after the British government announced that it aimed to bring them under the same controls on the number of students accessing public loans, and the same quality assurance regime, as the rest of the sector.
The government has adopted a policy of not discriminating between public, for-profit and voluntary providers of many public services. Is this the right way to go for higher education?
As one of the few cops walking the beat of global higher education, Britain’s Quality Assurance Agency does not limit its audits to schools inside Britain. Adjustment, rather than punishment, is the aim of the Q.A.A. Before the agency issues even a “limited confidence” judgment, the university being audited will typically be given the opportunity to appeal the decision. Out of 38 degree-awarding institutions audited last year, only two were given “limited confidence.” Of the 47 private providers reported on, the Q.A.A. issued just one finding of “no confidence” and two of “no reliance.”
A Supreme Court ruling could pave the way for a flood of appeals from private colleges and overseas students against a significant number of government immigration decisions, lawyers have said, writes David Matthews for Times Higher Education.
A private college in London has been given the power to award its own degrees in a move the government says will increase competition in England's higher education system, writes Angela Harrison for BBC News.
Students on private college courses such as animal chiropractic care, acupuncture and ‘contemporary person-centred psychotherapy’ have been eligible to receive state-subsidised funding during the past two years, with one private institution being given state loan access for nearly 100 sub-degree vocational courses in a single day, writes John Morgan for Times Higher Education.
A new £18,000-a-year private university headed by the philosopher AC Grayling and offering lectures by Richard Dawkins, Niall Ferguson and Steven Pinker has not filled any of its courses ahead of its opening next week.
Britain's first private dental school will open next September. The school, which will take 100 students a year on a five-year course costing £180,000, is expected to be the forerunner of many more private institutions offering specialist degree courses.
Post-1992 universities could begin to change their legal status and open up to private investment in the wake of the University of Central Lancashire's application to the government to become a private company.
FoI reveals moves and countermoves in struggle for state cash and influence. For-profit providers have pressed the government to give them greater access to publicly funded student loans and open up teaching grant in high-cost subjects.
Glion Institute of Higher Education, one of the world’s top three institutions of higher education for an international career in hospitality management, announced today that it is opening its first branch campus in London. The new campus expands the reach of Glion’s Swiss hospitality education programmes to students and industry leaders in the U.K. Glion is a member of Laureate International Universities, a global network of more than 60 accredited campus-based and online institutions of higher education serving more than 740,000 students in 29 countries.