This dissertation studies the effect of higher education costs on students' outcomes in the labor market, particularly when credit constraints are absent. It utilizes the UK's institutional setting to identify such an effect. The key findings are as follows. (i) Increasing tuition fees does not have adverse effects on students as long as credit…

Purpose: The study explores the perceptions of graduates on their employability and future of work, in light of the challenges thrown upon by new vicissitudes in the work environment. The study intends to assess the preparedness of management graduates in facing the challenges and uncertainties of the actual job market.…

This briefing reports on recent developments affecting Europe's recognition regimes -- both professional and academic. At the start of 2023, the European Year of Skills, the author looks at the context facing higher education stakeholders across four areas: the European labour market, Ukraine, developments in the higher education sector and the…

Do employers prioritize university prestige above an applicant's skills in the hiring process? To distinguish between the effect of human capital in the hiring process from the effect of the name of the graduating university--while controlling for networking effects--2,400 fictitious applications were submitted to IT and accounting jobs in the US,…

This article considers how neoliberalism has created a reductionist view of lifelong learning in the UK focused on upskilling workers for the labour market. This critical policy analysis uses Marx's theory of labour-power, as conceptualised by Glenn Rikowski, to examine the Skills and Post-16 Education Act, 2022 and to identify its ideological…

This briefing reports on recent developments affecting Europe's recognition regimes -- both professional and academic. Currently, the principal change factor is the drive to digitalise, accelerated by the new circumstances created by the pandemic. The crisis in Ukraine, too, has prompted a range of initiatives. Meanwhile, uncertainty still…

Some say that there are too many people going to university, and others have spent many years lamenting that they cannot find the graduates they need. What is the actual state of the graduate labour market? How many graduates actually are there? How is a graduate job defined, and how many people are there in them? And what does the future hold for…

Employers are increasingly selecting and developing employees based on skills rather than qualifications. Governments now have a growing focus on skilling, reskilling and upskilling the workforce through skills-based development rather than qualifications as a way of improving productivity. Both these changes are leading to a much stronger…

The 2020 EUA Learning & Teaching Thematic Peer Group on "Meeting skills and employability demands" explored how universities can ensure that their study programmes reflect the dynamic demands of society and the labour market, and address skills demands throughout the student experience. In this paper, employability is considered as…

In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on support for students transitioning into the workplace by universities, policymakers and students themselves. However, the students currently at university will be graduating into a complex environment. The COVID-19 pandemic, as well as having significant health impacts, has radically affected…

Research on the labour market experiences of highly skilled migrants has revealed the crippling employability challenges they face in the UK workplace resulting from the devaluation of their homeland qualifications and experiences. Studies on highly skilled migrants from Zimbabwe have revealed how migrants have to resort to semi-skilled and…

Many employers report that newly qualified graduates lack key skills necessary for success in the workplace. Although variable, many lack general 'transferable' or 'soft' skills including communication and teamworking. Staff at Edinburgh Napier University have sought to address this using the Skills Passport tool. The main element of the Skills…

Almost in a blink of the eye the policy focus on the 'knowledge' economy, with mass ranks of high skilled workers, has given way to claims of widespread 'technological unemployment'. This Working Paper will examine competing claims on the relationship between automation, skills and the future of work. It examines the research evidence on the scale…

The English tuition fee system is designed to be progressive and to ensure that higher education is well funded. As the Government considers how it could be improved, many former detractors are recognising we could do far worse and fear change. This paper proposes a solution comprising three interdependent policy changes without a significant…

A fundamental shift is taking place in the way we think about the future of work and its relationship to education, training and the labour market. Until recently, expanding higher education was widely believed to result in higher earnings, reflecting an insatiable demand for knowledge workers. In the United Kingdom, this race to higher education…