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.
The first batch of 60 undergraduates at the New College of the Humanities in Bloomsbury, London’s main university quarter, occupy a spacious Georgian house. Opening doors on the way up a grand staircase, your reporter eavesdropped on tutorials on ancient Greece, Romantic poets and economic theory. It feels like a dinky version of an august academic institution. Yet it is a for-profit organisation with a chief executive huddled over spreadsheets downstairs.
A group of leading independent schools is studying plans to set up an elite private university modelled on American liberal arts colleges, which concentrates on high-quality teaching for undergraduates rather than research.
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.
One of Britain's best-known public intellectuals took higher-education observers by surprise on Sunday with the announcement that he is spearheading the establishment of what would be an unprecedented kind of institution in Britain—a private, for-profit liberal-arts college that would rival elite institutions such as the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford.
Figures show that leading Russell Group universities spent £382 million (US$613 million) on the highest paid academics and managers last year – twice as much as in 2003-04. It also emerged that the proportion of university spending on top staff – those paid at least £100,000 a year – increased from just 1.8% to 3.8%, writes Graeme Paton for The Telegraph.
Singapore and the United Kingdom will work together to raise standards in private education in both countries. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to do so was signed on Friday by the Council for Private Education (CPE) Singapore and the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) United Kingdom.
First, there are now four private, non-state-funded institutions in the UK to have been granted university title, not one. The University of Buckingham and Regent's University London are not-for-profit charities that offer a broad portfolio of programmes, have strong international linkages and maintain a research profile. The University of Law and BPP University of Professional Studies have fewer degree students but offer first-rate professional training with real value for money. They are predominantly UK-focused but will undoubtedly increase their degree programmes and international reach.
A private medical school in Malaysia, Allianze University College of Medical Sciences or AUCMS, is to expand to Europe with the purchase of a major university site in London.
The news that BPP has become the latest provider of legal education to slap a ‘university’ sticker on its for-profit business has not yet caused as much of a stir as when the College of Law adopted its University of Law moniker in November last year.
In a bold and commendable move, the government last week granted university status to BPP University, making it the second for-profit private higher education institution in the UK.
Student numbers at private higher education institutions will be capped from 2014-15, the government has confirmed, while private providers will also be granted unlimited recruitment of high-grade students.
The only for-profit institution in Britain authorized to offer higher-education degrees is in talks with several public universities about managing the business side of their operations, according to the Guardian. The company, BPP, “has launched an aggressive expansion plan to jointly run at least 10 of its publicly funded counterparts,” the paper reports.