The COVID-19 pandemic has caused one of the worst economic crises since the Great Depression. Although countries responded quickly to support displaced workers with assistance packages and funding for education and training, additional measures might be needed. Each country's economic recovery will most likely depend on how well its workforce is…

Authors who claim that higher education is a public service are often concerned about equity: they are making a normative case that like all education it should be available for everybody. Others stress the external economies: a society with large numbers of highly educated people is more efficient economically and better in many other ways.…

Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data provides information on how much UK graduates of different courses at different universities are earning, either one, three or five years since graduating. This briefing gives an overview of what LEO data is and how it can be useful to students, policy makers and higher education institutions. It also…

In this brief, authors Michael Ettlinger, Jordan Hensley, and Julia Vieira analyze how much the governments of different countries spend, and on what, to illuminate the range of fiscal policy options available and provide a basis for determining which approaches work best. They report that the United States ranks twenty-fourth in government…

This book examines contemporary educational research and its governance, addressing key questions via a multidisciplinary theoretical framework of comparative institutional analysis with original data and applying multiple methods. The authors explore and explain important changes in the governance of educational research and the contents of…

Acquiring statutory funding to study in Higher Education brings complex difficulties for UK students under the age of 25 who are estranged from their family, but have not been part of the care system. This paper explores the experiences of 564 estranged students and their experiences of providing evidence of family estrangement in order to access…

acl Consulting was commissioned in November 2018 to undertake research for the UK Department for Education (DfE) aimed at understanding costs and cost drivers in the Further Education (FE) sector. The main aim of the research was to provide estimates of the cost of delivering good quality FE provision. Specifically, to: (1) Provide information on…

This support document contains material that supports the research report, "Higher Apprenticeships in Australia: What Are We Talking About?". It provides more detail on two elements of the research: (1) An overview of publicly available information on international models of higher apprenticeships, both established and under development…

This article reviews the investment that UK higher education institutions have made in technology-enhanced learning (TEL) services in recent years, and considers the impact this has had on academic practice. Drawing on UCISA survey and case study research, our analysis shows that whilst the range of centrally supported TEL tools and services in…

The values of higher education (HE) are undergoing a disruptive shift. How the rising cost of higher education is being shared between the student and society is driving many of the changes within HE. External pressures on institutions of higher education include reduced public funding, wider student participation and increased competition. These…

Purpose: This study aims to focus on the following research question--Which institutional characteristics are associated with sustainability reporting by UK higher education institutions? Design/methodology/approach: To answer the aforementioned research question, this study uses logistic regression. Findings: The results show that 17 per cent of…

We explore how the influx of foreign funding into the higher education sectors of the United States and United Kingdom has raised the challenge of "reputation laundering"--when foreign donors and individuals use donations to prestigious universities to boost their international public image and offset negative images or reported…

This paper provides an overview of government policy on young people who are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) across the four UK nations. The paper argues that policy in England on this topic is less well-developed and coherent than in the other UK nations, and that the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic will serve to amplify the…

Despite the obvious benefits derived from education, governments face difficult trade-offs when balancing the share of public and private contributions to education. Understanding how private expenditure is sourced, through public transfers or through private funds, can make a difference in enabling access to education and provide insights into…

This Policy Briefing Note questions the Office for Budget Responsibility's (OBR's) predictions of future student numbers. OBR's forecasts feed into the country's economic planning on things like levels of borrowing, which in turn affects the room for manoeuvre that policymakers feel they have. This Policy Briefing Note provides examples of OBR's…