Few are as influential or as respected in education policy circles as Baroness Alison Wolf, whose influence and research stretches across the tertiary education landscape from HE to FE and skills. Wolf’s ideas have become only more influential in the past year, and were evidently taken to heart by Theresa May’s advisors in the run up to the General Election. Wolf has been a long-term sceptic of continued university expansion, and her most recent paper for the Education Policy Institute advocates expanding sub-degree higher education at the expense of bachelor’s degrees, and also rebalancing funding towards the colleges sector.
Wolf was also an active legislator during the Higher Education and Research Act’s passage through the House of Lords. She made a point of defending the sector’s autonomy, criticising TEF, and calling for regulation of new private providers. She was a critically important figure in securing the many amendments to the Bill made by the Lords.