Wonk Corner

A long-awaited report from Research England puts the outstanding maintenance backlog bill at about £5.3bn

David Kernohan

When John Healey stood up to deliver this year’s Budget, he worked his way through what felt like most of the electorate.

Jim Dickinson

Looks like help for plan 2 graduates is not at the top of the cabinet’s in-tray, whatever Lucy Powell says

David Kernohan

12:36

New data from SLC shows the work involved in dealing with PAYE inflexibility and poor information from employers

David Kernohan

10:00

Three years after ministers promised Welsh students a baseline of mental health support wherever they study, Medr has published a framework.

Jim Dickinson

00:54

It’s not many, and it is not representative. But October application declines are a worry.

David Kernohan

20:52

Britain’s newest Chancellor delivered his first Budget today, and across a 7,000-word statement John Healey had one line to offer on universities.

Jim Dickinson

14:12

Following today’s Budget the Department for Education has published a revised impact analysis on the International Student Levy (ISL)

James Coe

A new “call to suppliers” encourages providers to treat buying AI like buying anything else

David Kernohan

The High Court has determined that there will be no discount for the regulator

David Kernohan

Tonight in Belgrade, Aleksandar Vučić told officials that, based on a stratified sample, the Serbian Progressive Party had lost the country’s parliamentary election to a list of 250 candidates chosen by student plenums – open assemblies at each faculty where any student can speak and vote.

Jim Dickinson

On Tuesday night, Burnham-whisperer and former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane gave the annual lecture at the Lifelong Education Institute.

Jim Dickinson

ISE’s 2026 student recruitment survey paints a picture of a graduate job market in flux

David Kernohan

Set aside for a second the fact that when you ask students if academics should be able to use AI in marking, they tend to be vehemently opposed.

Jim Dickinson

Nobody in government has ever said it out loud, but read the Renters’ Rights Act as a set of choices rather than a set of clauses and it’s hard to escape the conclusion that one of its aims is to get students out of shared houses and into purpose-built blocks.

Jim Dickinson

One of the impacts of holding down home undergraduate tuition fees for so long is how cheap a year’s tuition fees are now in comparison to the private school you pay for to get a child into the Russell Group.

Jim Dickinson

15:43

The UK and the EU have agreed the outline of a November summit that includes a youth experience scheme.

Jim Dickinson

10:26

It is coming, and people would really like you to be ready

David Kernohan

There’s a piece in the Guardian on collapsing providers of high-end student accommodation.

Jim Dickinson

10:00

Andy Burnham’s conference speech on Tuesday began its housing section with his gran.

Jim Dickinson

00:42

Every year the OECD publishes Education at a glance, and every year I flick to the table on spending per tertiary student and think the same thing – WTF?

Jim Dickinson

For most of the past fortnight, the big education story in France has been about lycées – the upper secondary schools that take 15 to 18-year-olds through to the baccalauréat, the national school-leaving exam.

Jim Dickinson

16:56

The first ever academic redundancy happend as recently as 1988

David Kernohan

12:50

New SFC reports paint a bleak picture

David Kernohan

The security services put links between the China General Technology Research Institution and Chinese espionage into the public domain

David Kernohan

21:11

Was there something more substantial in the PM’s big speech for the sector?

David Kernohan

13:53

As you might expect, I’ve spent Labour conference here in Liverpool looking for students.

Jim Dickinson

11:16

Students have been hard to find at Labour conference.

Jim Dickinson

06:21

When it comes to economic growth Burnham can’t devolve away the hard decisions

James Coe

20:58

Over on the Post-18 Project, Director John Blake has some reflections on what he’s seen and heard here in Liverpool.

Jim Dickinson

19:39

I’m sure most readers have taken part in one of those in-tray exercises at some stage in their career.

Jim Dickinson

11:43

The effects of little-noticed threshold freezes

David Kernohan

09:33

It turns out that the people that advocate for workers rights might also be good at advocating for worker reskilling.

David Kernohan

22:08

Bern nearly tripled its fee for international students and lost more than a third of its new entrants. Europe keeps relearning the same lesson

Jim Dickinson

18:07

The Department for Education (DfE) has published a statement of expectations on student accommodation.

Jim Dickinson

Has a long-standing truce in the relationships of our mission groups broken down?

David Kernohan

New Public First research shows the public agree with Burnham on education – including his lack of interest in higher education policy

Luca Lombardo

The other day I was talking to an international student leader enrolled on a Business Analytics degree.

Jim Dickinson

You may (or may not) have been wondering what has been happening with the Higher Education Mental Health Implementation Taskforce.

Jim Dickinson

Elsewhere on the site today I’ve been picking through the Office for Students’ (OfS) consultation on its two new free speech conditions of registration.

Jim Dickinson

If a course has fewer staff per student, do the students rate it worse?

Jim Dickinson

15:57

I spent this morning chairing a panel at the ICEF Monitor Global Summit in London with the title “How do we tell the story of international education?”.

Jim Dickinson

12:00

The other day a student leader told me that she struggled to get a word in edgeways in her seminars. I was surprised, given her general demeanour, until she revealed that the average size of them was 35-40 students.

Jim Dickinson

In the i Paper today, Martha from Essex got into Exeter through clearing, and then had to spend a couple of weeks in an Airbnb while she tried to find accommodation.

Jim Dickinson

Am I really reading a report on universities offering work experience that has managed to involve 30 universities, 200 employers and business groups, a poll of 500 employer senior leaders, but not a single student?

Jim Dickinson

15:57

There are very much winners and losers today

David Kernohan

15:44

The top recruiting month for the 2026–27 academic year sees 20,000 fewer main applicants

Michael Salmon

00:15

A Universities UK report makes that case for supporting graduates into employment

David Kernohan