Higher

The Careers Adviser: 'Do any courses link film and music? If I can't pay, will I get no gap-year support abroad?'

Thursday, 31 July 2008

Education Letters: Getting working-class school leavers into research-driven universities

Thursday, 31 July 2008

Leading Article: Lessons in worth

Thursday, 24 July 2008

British universities are beginning to respond to student concerns about value for money in the era of top-up fees. We know because Manchester University and now the London School of Economics are putting more emphasis on teaching.

University choice: The cost of getting it wrong

Thursday, 24 July 2008

Few state schools teach their students about the status differences between universities – even though it is a big factor in how much money they will earn. Geraldine Hackett reports

Universities: Worcester's source of pride

Thursday, 24 July 2008

One very new university is pulling in applicants at a phenomenal rate. Lucy Hodges investigates

Susan Bassnett: Why university exams need a radical overhaul

Thursday, 17 July 2008

Anxiety about what goes on in universities has surfaced again, this time over the quality of degrees being handed out. This kind of debate usually emerges in August, when A-level and GCSE results are published, and ministers say that the increase in top grades is due to better teaching and higher levels of achievement, and pundits wonder why, therefore, top universities are setting their own entrance exams and running remedial classes. Disquieting news has also come from employers, who suggest that they may trust a lower degree from a top university more than a high degree from a university less high in the league tables.

Independent/Bosch Technology Horizons Award: Writers capture China rising

Thursday, 17 July 2008

Technology is driving global change, but how exactly? Young writers put their fingers on the engineering button

India is shutting the door on Britain's top institutions

Thursday, 17 July 2008

Since it began market reforms in the early Nineties, India has rolled out the red carpet for many British corporations. Vodafone, British Telecom and Rolls-Royce all have operations here, helping to push foreign direct investment to nearly £8bn last year. But while Britain's phone companies, cars and expertise in higher education are welcomed, its universities are not.

Leading Article: Applicants first

Thursday, 17 July 2008

A report out today from Universities UK serves to remind us of just how intransigent the universities are being on a post-qualification admissions system, which would enable students to apply once they had their A-level results, rather than before.

Education Diary: Durham's bursar in the dock

Thursday, 17 July 2008

One rarely associates Britain's elite universities with the sordid world of crime. But a bursar at Durham University has recently found herself in the dock, accused of pilfering the tidy sum of £519,583.95 from the coffers of St Chad's College. Last week, Christine Starkey, 59, appeared before magistrates in County Durham accused of taking the money from the college's bank account and transferring it to her own between 18 April 2002 and 5 December last year. Starkey is also charged with converting criminal property, namely money, into goods and other items.

Education Letters: Admissions crisis

Thursday, 17 July 2008

I welcome the support of the chief executive of UCAS for my concerns about the fragmentation of the university admissions system (Letters, EDUCATION & CAREERS, 10 July). It is clearly common sense that a system that becomes arbitrary cannot be satisfactory. While this common ground is very welcome, Anthony McLaren's belief that current UCAS practice resolves the difficulties is not tenable.

The green league table: How environmentally friendly is your university?

Thursday, 10 July 2008

The green league table is making universities think again. Lucy Hodges on the saints and the sinners

Leading Article: Survive and thrive

Thursday, 10 July 2008

Universities could become unviable and be forced to merge, and their unpopular courses shut down, under a worst-case scenario discussed by a report published today. The report by Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors, warned that the number of 18-year-olds will fall by 2020, removing 70,000 potential students from the higher education system.

Education letters: We get results

Thursday, 10 July 2008

Trevor Fisher (Comment, EDUCATION&CAREERS;, 3 July) is right to draw attention to the potential dangers for applicants to higher education, which may arise from an increasingly fragmented approach to assessing achievement and potential.

Welcome to the campus of the future

Thursday, 3 July 2008

The vice-chancellor of Staffordshire University is spearheading a revolution for an education-on-demand culture that will regenerate local communities

Trevor Fisher: Why the admissions system has to change

Thursday, 3 July 2008

State schools and colleges are increasingly finding themselves trapped in no-man's land over admissions to the top universities. They are blamed for not preparing students properly to get into the research-intensive Russell Group universities. At the same time, league-table pressures, and the fact that their students are opting for the non-traditional A-level subjects that they enjoy, make it harder for them to meet the demands of admissions tutors.

Leading Article: Green giants

Thursday, 3 July 2008

Today People and Planet publishes its annual league table of how green our universities are, thereby putting useful pressure on higher education.

How to find the best digs in town

Thursday, 26 June 2008

Accommodation for students is more costly than ever, so it pays to shop around

Against The Grain: 'UFO sightings should be taken more seriously'

Thursday, 26 June 2008

David Clarke is a lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University who believes that UFOs are a worthy subject for academic study.

Terence Kealey: The state should keep its hands off Oxbridge

Thursday, 26 June 2008

Every five years, the Higher Education Funding Council for England conducts an assurance review of the universities it funds. Cambridge's one is coming up, and it is rumoured that it will fail. Why might Hefce condemn Cambridge?

Leading Article: Degree concern

Thursday, 26 June 2008

Peter Williams, chief executive of the Quality Assurance Agency, has broken cover to give his views on degree standards. He is worried that the degree classification system of Firsts, 2:1s and 2:2s is arbitrary and unreliable, and he is concerned that universities are taking too many overseas students whose English is inadequate.

Surrey University's new China institute will help to put it on the international map

Thursday, 26 June 2008

At which university did Led Zeppelin perform their first gig in 1968, the year that the university was establishing a 74-acre campus on the outskirts of a prosperous south-eastern town in the shadow of a great red-brick cathedral?

Education Letters: Maths for engineers

Thursday, 26 June 2008

Imperial College has said that it plans to lengthen degrees due to students' weakness in maths. We are most encouraged by the universities who will be welcoming successful advanced diploma graduates in the years to come.

Ride of a lifetime: From the fairground to a university career

Sunday, 22 June 2008

She was brought up on a fairground, and called a 'gypsy' and 'tinker' at school. Now Vanessa Toulmin is using her early experiences to forge a glittering academic career

Against The Grain: 'I'd invite the BNP to a debate'

Thursday, 19 June 2008

Dennis Hayes is a visiting professor at the Westminster Institute of Education at Oxford Brookes University. He argues that academics should have the freedom to put forward controversial and unpopular opinions with impunity, no matter how offensive they might be.