Established UK universities will go out of business within the next 10 years unless they adapt to survive an era of intense pressure driven by globalisation, technology, rising student expectations, and competition for funding, a report has warned.
The Labour Party has warned that the government¡¯s drive to reduce net migration is choking off the flow of ¡°legitimate university students¡± while ignoring abuse of the visitor visa route used by English language students.
Former education secretary David Blunkett has challenged universities to stand up to coalition ministers if they have concerns over government reforms.
David Willetts has criticised ¡°curmudgeons¡± who call for the return of a binary divide between universities and polytechnics, while a Labour MP has said modern universities can teach older institutions a lesson.
The number of visas issued to overseas students has fallen by a fifth although applications for university student visas have increased by 3 per cent, according to the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics.
The government has rejected universities¡¯ calls for overseas students to be withdrawn from the net migrant count, a move that may kill off hopes of securing the change in the current Parliament.
The lack of clarity over Research Councils UK¡¯s new open access policy is ¡°unacceptable¡± and government ministers should learn lessons from the confusion, according to a House of Lords report.
The visa process can trap students in a costly Kafkaesque limbo. To improve life for foreign scholars, the sector should halt its failed lobbying over policy and focus on publicising the misery caused by Byzantine bureaucracy, argues Simeon Underwood
The Higher Education Policy Institute has mounted a successful drive to recruit more university partners, with the institutions helping to secure the independent thinktank¡¯s long-term future.
The short-term benefits to the government of increasing student fees in England will be outweighed 6.5 times over by the long-term costs of the new system, according to a new report.
David Cameron has welcomed news that five more universities have signed up to offer courses on Futurelearn, the UK¡¯s massive open online course provider.
UK universities have announced a series of research partnerships and scholarships to coincide with the prime minister¡¯s visit to India to bolster trade and education links.
The Russell Group of elite universities has declared its opposition to separating AS-levels from A-levels ¨C three weeks after the proposals were announced.
US president Barack Obama has said that taxpayers ¡°cannot continue to subsidise higher and higher and higher costs of higher education¡± in his annual State of the Union Address, and published proposals that would require colleges to meet performance thresholds to qualify for federal funding.
One of the most strident critics of the government¡¯s plan to introduce baccalaureate-style examinations to replace GCSEs has welcomed the decision by Michael Gove to abandon the plan.
A Tory MP renowned for pro-homeopathy views has been has been provisionally appointed as a member of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.
The chairs of five parliamentary committees have written to the prime minister urging him to remove overseas university students from the net migrant target, highlighting ¡°unprecedented¡± consensus between MPs and peers on the move.
A university education department has warned that it may have to make redundancies as a result of government cuts to allocations of teacher training places.
Government rhetoric over visas is to blame for a perception that the UK is not a good place for international students to set up a business, according to a recent survey
Whether spurred by lofty research ambition or the prosaic hope that one can live more cheaply than two, universities¡¯ urge to merge can bring cultural as well as organisational challenges, as recent unions show. David Matthews reports
