Category: Universities

  • Lean, Global, and Tuition-Free: The University of the People Model

    Lean, Global, and Tuition-Free: The University of the People Model

    One of the most consistent problems in higher education, one that bedevils systems around the globe, is that of cost containment. Costs in higher education grow inexorably, both due to the Baumol effect, that is, services in labor intensive industries like education tend to have costs that grow faster than inflation. And the Bowen Effect, which states that because quality and education is unmeasurable and expenditures are often mistaken for quality, there’s a permanent ratchet effect on university costs limited only by the amount of resources a university can amass. Education’s expensive and getting ever more so.

    But what if I told you there was a university out there that had the cost problem licked? It’s a university based in the United States and accredited by the very respected Western Association of Schools and Colleges. It delivers education the world over with 150,000 students in more than 200 countries and territories. And it educates all these students tuition free, for a grand total of about $150 US per year per student. Sound miraculous? Well, it is in a way, and it’s not easily replicable, but it is real and it’s worth learning from. It’s called the University of the People, an online institution founded in 2009 and based in California. 

    Today, my guest is the University of the People’s Founder and President Shai Reshef. He’s received global recognition for his work at University of the People. He’s an Ashoka fellow. He’s one of Fast Company’s Most Creative in Business, named the Top Global Thinker by Foreign Policy Magazine, and most impressively, he was winner of the 2023 Yidan Prize for Educational Development, which is probably the highest form of global recognition in the field of education.

    In our chat today, Shai and I cover the basic economics of running a mega online university. We answer the questions: how do you serve students across 20 plus time zones? How does a university without government support stay tuition free? And most importantly, how — even if most of your staff are volunteer — are you able to manage things like academic governance and quality assurance on a shoestring?

    And as I said, not everything Shai is going to tell us today is going to be transferrable to other institutions, but his message should have at least some resonance and the University of the People’s experiences can lead to change elsewhere.

    But enough for me. Let’s listen to Shai.

    The World of Higher Education Podcast
    Episode 3.29 | Lean, Global, and Tuition-Free: The University of the People Model

    Transcript

    Alex Usher (AU): Shai, let’s start with the basics. For listeners who might not be familiar—what is the University of the People? Who does it serve? And how does that make it different from a traditional university?

    Shai Reshef (SR): The University of the People is the first nonprofit, tuition-free, accredited American online university. Our mission is to open the gates of higher education to anyone in the world who is qualified but has no other way to access it—either because it’s too expensive, like in the U.S., or because they live in countries where there aren’t enough universities. Africa would be a great example.

    We also serve people who are deprived of access for political or cultural reasons—refugees, women in Afghanistan, or anyone else who, for personal reasons, can’t attend a traditional university. We use the internet to bring higher education to them.

    AU: How big is the institution? How many students do you have? Where are they from? And what’s the breadth of programming that you offer?

    SR: We started in 2009. As of now, we have 153,000 students from 209 countries—so, pretty much from almost every country in the world.

    Our students are typically people who did go to high school but didn’t attend university afterward. Many of them started working and later realized they needed a degree to advance their careers. Our student body tends to be older; they’re not your typical 18-year-olds. They come to us because they want a better future.

    That’s why we only offer degrees that are likely to help them find jobs. At the undergraduate level, we offer degrees in business administration, computer science, and health science. At the graduate level, we offer programs in education, information technology, and business—specifically, the MBA.

    AU: That’s huge. This must cost an awful lot of money. You’re not a public university in the sense of being government funded, and you’re not charging tuition. So how does it work? What does it cost, and how do you make ends meet?

    SR: Well, first of all, we are nonprofit. So, we’re not making money—maybe a small surplus, but not profit. And we are tuition-free. That means students can study for free, but when they get to the exams, we ask them to pay $140 USD per exam.

    Now, for some students—especially those from developing countries—even that amount is too much. So we provide scholarships where we can. About half of our students pay the exam fees, and the other half receive scholarships.

    We’re able to stay sustainable and tuition-free because we run a very lean operation. We rely heavily on technology. We offer only a few degree programs, all of which are directly relevant to the job market. We also operate in many parts of the world where we can deliver quality education at lower costs.

    We don’t have buildings—since we’re fully online—and importantly, we lean heavily on volunteers. I’m a volunteer. The deans are volunteers. Our professors and faculty are volunteers too. In fact, we have over 40,000 volunteers supporting the university.

    AU: But surely $140 per exam on its own isn’t enough to run the institution, right? You must have other sources of income, I imagine?

    SR: Our budget—running a university with 153,000 students—is about $20 million USD. Two-thirds of that comes from student fees. The remaining one-third comes from donations. These include contributions from wealthy individuals and foundations such as the Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Ulet Foundation. We also receive some government support—for example, from the German government.

    So, about $7 million comes from donations, and $13–14 million comes from student fees. But again, we operate on just a fraction of the budget that any other university of our size would require.

    AU: I’m just looking at the numbers—$20 million to teach 150,000 students. That’s about $120 or $130 per student. That’s very, very low. And one of the ways you manage that, I understand, is through your use of volunteers. How do you get people to teach for free?

    SR: It’s a good question. In my previous life, before I started the University of the People, I launched and ran the first online university in Europe. So I had a good understanding of how an online university should operate.

    When I decided to start the University of the People and make it tuition-free, the main difference—among several—was to rely on volunteers rather than paid faculty and staff. At the time, I wasn’t sure how well that would work.

    I announced the university in January 2009 at a conference in Munich. The next day, The New York Times ran a full-page article about it. And the day after that, I already had hundreds of professors writing to me saying, “We love this idea. We want to help.”

    So people come to us. I’m not out there recruiting them—they come because I’m not the only one who believes higher education should be a basic right, and that money shouldn’t be a barrier. I came with the idea of tuition-free higher education, and a lot of people believe in that mission. They want to be part of it and help.

    AU: What kind of support services are you able to offer students? I mean, student services, academic support—how can you do that within a tuition-free model? Are there still some things you’re able to provide?

    SR: Oh, we’re able to do a lot. First of all, all of our courses are written in advance by subject matter experts. They go through a peer review process, just like any other academic program. Once finalized, they’re taught in our online classes.

    When students sign up, they’re placed in a class of 20 to 30 students—each time with peers from 20 to 30 different countries. Every course runs for eight weeks. On the first day of the week, students receive their lecture notes, reading assignments, homework, and discussion question.

    The core of our pedagogy is peer discussion—students engage in week-long discussions around the topic of the week. Every class has a professor who reads and moderates the discussion daily.

    Each student also has a program advisor who follows them from the moment they enroll until they graduate. So there is a lot of support. If a student stops showing up to class, they’ll typically get an email asking where they are.

    Even though our professors are volunteers, they commit 10 to 15 hours per week, per course, to support students with everything they need. So it’s a full-service university.

    The difference between us and a traditional university is that we don’t offer the “nice-to-haves.” We don’t have a football team, a gym, or psychological services—which are important, but we simply can’t afford them. But everything core to the academic experience is there—and delivered with high quality.

    AU: Shai, I want to ask—one of the things you must have to navigate when you’ve got students from all over the world and you’re operating in so many jurisdictions is accreditation. That seems like something that’s very bureaucratic and time-consuming. So how do you handle that? Do you do any jurisdiction shopping? Where are your degrees accredited, and is that part of the reason people pursue them?

    SR: Originally, in 2014, we were accredited by DEAC, which is a national accreditation agency in the U.S. And just a couple of weeks ago, we were accredited by WASC—the Western Association of Schools and Colleges—which is one of the six regional accrediting bodies in the U.S.

    That puts us in the same group as Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA. Some might argue they need to work a little harder to meet our standards—but in any case, we’re now in the same accreditation category.

    Now, even though our students come from around the world, many of them admire American education. That’s a big part of why they choose us. In a few countries, we’re not locally recognized because we’re fully online. But still, thousands of students study with us because they value the American degree, and because local employers recognize and appreciate the quality of our education.

    Was it easy to get accredited? No, it was hard. It took a lot of work. We had to prove that what we offer is equivalent, in terms of outcomes, to what traditional universities offer. That includes how we admit students, how we support them, and how we assess their learning outcomes.

    In the end, we did everything required to meet those expectations—and we succeeded. That’s why we were granted accreditation.

    AU: It just occurred to me, as I was thinking about this, that maybe this is your secret sauce. These are the kinds of things that cost millions of dollars at many universities. And if you’re able to do it without complex quality assurance structures, academic senates, registrar’s offices, and all those kinds of things—if you’re able to do it with the leanest version of those—isn’t that something other institutions could learn from?

    SR: Yes, they can learn. But do they want to learn? That’s a different question.

    One of the challenges we pose to other universities is this: when you’re charging $30,000 to $50,000 a year, and then here comes a university charging just $1,400 a year—if students pay in full and study full time—that’s a huge contrast. And when traditional institutions see that, they often just turn around and say, “No way,” because they don’t believe it’s real.

    The truth is, our advantage comes from the fact that we built a new institution from scratch. That allowed us to decide what to do—and what not to do.

    Let me give you an example. At a university our size, the admissions office alone might have thousands of people reading student résumés, essays, checking social media, verifying every detail—thoroughly evaluating each application.

    We do it differently. We say: if you have a high school diploma, come and take two courses. If you pass, you’ve shown us you meet our standards. You get credit for those courses and become a degree-seeking student. If you can’t pass, you can’t continue.

    Now, not only is that a better system in my view—because it tests students based on how they actually perform, not how well someone coached them on an application—but it also saves a ton of money. We don’t need a large admissions operation. Just come in and prove yourself.

    It’s a different way of operating—and a much more efficient one. And I think that’s our real secret. It’s not really a secret—but it works.

    AU: You’ve scaled up incredibly quickly—15 years to reach 150,000 students, and to be embedded in, I guess, just about every country in the world. What were the biggest hurdles in that scaling process? Were there moments where you stumbled and thought, “Wow, I’m not sure we can grow this quickly?” Or was it pretty smooth?

    SR: Well, if you ask me, I’d actually answer a different question: Why aren’t we even bigger than we are?

    Because the truth is, we’re online—there are no physical seat limits. Nobody has to stand at the back of the lecture hall. So, in theory, we could double our student body. Why haven’t we?

    The main challenge is that most people in the world haven’t heard of us. Even when I travel and someone asks what I do, and I say, “University of the People,” I’m surprised if they’ve heard of it. Most people haven’t—and especially not the ones who need us most, like refugees or people in remote or underserved regions.

    The second challenge is that even when people do find us, we don’t have enough resources to support everyone. For example, we have 4,300 Afghan women currently hiding and studying with us inside Afghanistan—but we received 20,000 applications from there. So yes, it’s incredible that we can serve over 4,000 women, but we simply can’t accommodate all who apply.

    To go back to your original question about the difficulties we’ve encountered—yes, there are some. For instance, there are countries that still don’t recognize online education. In those places, we’re just waiting for governments to become more open to 21st-century technologies and new models of learning.

    So that’s been one of our biggest challenges: growing awareness and overcoming regulatory barriers.

    AU: In lots of traditional universities, success is measured through things like research output, income, or rankings. How do you measure success at the University of the People?

    SR: Well, the first thing we look at is how many people we’ve given the opportunity to pursue higher education—people who had no other alternatives. That’s a key measure for us.

    I was once interviewed by a student journalist from an Ivy League school, and he said, “You’re setting up competition for my institution.” And I told him, “Anyone who wants to go to your institution should absolutely do so. But we’re here for those who don’t have that option.”

    So one measure of our success is how many doors we open. Another is how many of our students actually graduate—and what they go on to do. We have graduates working at Amazon, Google, Apple, IBM, the World Bank—that’s another sign of success.

    Ultimately, we measure ourselves by whether we’ve helped people build a better life. Are they better off while studying with us? That’s what matters to us.

    We don’t participate in rankings competitions. We don’t try to be the most expensive institution—though in some parts of the sector, it seems the more expensive you are, the better you’re perceived to be. That’s a strange way to measure quality, but it’s common in higher ed.

    We’re proud to be different. We’re changing the model of higher education to make it accessible, affordable, and high-quality.

    AU: A few days ago in The New York Times, there was an article by the Russian writer Masha Gessen. They were talking about the attacks on higher education in the United States and mentioned that the ideal model right now might be the University of the People in Poland—a communist-era, tuition-free university. As I was preparing for this interview, I thought, “Wait a minute, that sounds a lot like your University of the People.” I’m curious what you think about that argument. Given all the challenges in U.S. higher education—even before Trump—are approaches like yours part of the solution?

    SR: I actually read that very article. Believe it or not, we just sent them an email today saying the same thing—basically, “It sounds like you’re talking about the University of the People.” I assume they don’t know about us—otherwise, they probably would have mentioned us directly.

    I truly believe we are the future. Every person should have the right to higher education. Universities should open their gates far wider than they do now. The more people who are educated, the stronger the country: people have better futures, the economy improves, and society benefits from individuals who are well-rounded and capable of critical thinking. That’s what the world needs.

    The American system has created some of the best universities in the world—there’s no question about that. I’m not against those institutions. What I’m against is the lack of opportunity for everyone else. And I think what we’ve demonstrated is that higher education can be accessible and affordable for all.

    That’s part of why we’ve grown so quickly—we want to show that this model works, that it’s sustainable, and that others can follow it, in the U.S. and around the world. The challenges facing higher education aren’t unique to one country; they’re global. And anyone can look at what we’ve done and replicate it—or ask us to help them replicate it. We’d be happy to help.

    AU: So, you’ve been around for just over 15 years. If I ask you to look ahead—what does the University of the People look like in 2040? Will you be twice as big? Even bigger than that? Will you offer different kinds of degrees? How do you see the next decade and a half playing out?

    SR: You know, in 2010, following the earthquake in Haiti, we announced that we would take in 250 Haitian students and teach them for free. What I didn’t realize at the time was that, after the earthquake, many of them were living in tents, without electricity or internet.

    Still, two months later, the first group of 15 or 16 students began studying. I went to Haiti to welcome them, and I met many students while I was there. One of them asked me what the future of University of the People looked like. I gave them the same answer I’d give today:

    We’ll keep growing to serve more and more students—until one day we wake up and realize that all the students in the world who need access to higher education are being served. And then, maybe, we’ll go back to sleep and wake up with another dream.

    Until then, we have a long way to go. So yes, we’ll continue to grow, we’ll continue to serve more people, and hopefully, others will replicate what we’re doing. We don’t need to educate the entire world—just help show that it’s possible.

    AU: Shai, thank you so much for being with us today.

    SR: Thank you very much for this interview. It was fascinating—thank you.

    AU: And it just remains for me to thank our excellent producers—Tiffany MacLennan, Sam Pufek—and you, our viewers, listeners, and readers, for joining us. If you have any questions about this podcast or suggestions for future episodes, please don’t hesitate to get in touch at [email protected]. Quick request from us: head over to our YouTube page and subscribe to the Higher Education Strategy Associates channel so you never miss an episode of The World of Higher Education.

    Join us next week—my guest will be John Stackhouse. He’s the Senior Vice President at RBC and former Editor-in-Chief of The Globe and Mail. He’ll be joining me to talk about a new post-secondary education initiative that RBC is undertaking, in partnership with the Business + Higher Education Roundtable and us here at Higher Education Strategy Associates. I’ll be asking in particular about the future of Canadian higher education and how better links can be forged between universities and the private sector. See you then.

    *This podcast transcript was generated using an AI transcription service with limited editing. Please forgive any errors made through this service. Please note, the views and opinions expressed in each episode are those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast host and team, or our sponsors.

    This episode is sponsored by KnowMeQ. ArchieCPL is the first AI-enabled tool that massively streamlines credit for prior learning evaluation. Toronto based KnowMeQ makes ethical AI tools that boost and bottom line, achieving new efficiencies in higher ed and workforce upskilling. 

    Source link

  • Editorial: 60 Years of the Society for Research into Higher Education

    Editorial: 60 Years of the Society for Research into Higher Education

    by Rob Cuthbert

    Yesterday

    Issue No 60 of SRHE News appears by happy coincidence in the 60th year since the Society for Research into Higher Education was established (“all my troubles seemed so far away”). Reminiscences can often be reinforced by the musical soundtrack of the time, as ours will be. Many readers of SRHE News and Blog weren’t born in 1965, but let’s not allow such small obstacles to deflect us, when everybody knows the tunes anyway. Here are a few reminders of how things were 60 years ago, in 1965.

    (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

    As the Rolling Stones sang: “I tried, and I tried, and I tried and I tried, I can’t get no satisfaction”, the message resonated with 30,000 potential HE students who could not get admitted to higher education in UK universities in 1965, with only 50,000 places available. Only about 4% of the rising cohort of 18 year olds won admission to the 25 universities in existence in 1965. Most people left school at 15; the school-leaving age was only raised to 16 in 1971.

    The Robbins Report two years earlier had punctuated, but not initiated, the accelerating expansion of demand and need for more higher education, reflected in the 1960s with the creation of the new plateglass universities, including Kent and Warwick in 1965. Robbins had proposed a new breed of scientific and technological universities but these were not established; development relied instead on the organic growth and expansion of the colleges already in existence. That growth was significantly helped and supported by the new Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), created in 1965 to begin the validation of degree courses outside universities.

    In a Parliamentary debate in December 1965 Lord Robbins aimed to set at rest the ‘more means worse’ argument championed by Kingsley Amis:

    “On the occasion of our last debate, the two leading issues discussed were the question of numbers and the question of the machinery of government. On the first of these issues, whether the expansion proposed by the Committee on Higher Education involved a lowering of entry standards, I think it may be said that discussion is at an end. Even The Times newspaper, which is not over-given to retraction, has had to admit that its accusations in this respect rested on misapprehension; 1250 and the latest figures of qualified persons coming forward show, without a doubt, what our Committee always emphasised: that its estimates were on the low side rather than on the high.”

    Continuing rapid expansion allowed more and more 18-year-olds to join: “I’m in with the in-crowd, I go where the in-crowd goes”. This was before fees; students had grants they didn’t have to repay, with their real value still rising (they peaked in 1968): boomers could happily sing with The Who about My Generation.

     We Can Work It Out

    The non-university colleges would first become polytechnics, following the 1966 White Paper A Plan for Polytechnics and Other Colleges, written by civil servant Toby Weaver. Secretary of State for Education Tony Crosland promoted the new policy idea of the binary system (“Try to see it my way”) in his seminal Woolwich speech in April 1965, but Crosland had been mainly occupied with the comprehensivisation of secondary schools. DES Circular 10/65 was the first of a series which dealt with the issue of comprehensivisation, as Harold Wilson’s Labour government asked local education authorities to submit plans for reorganising their schools on comprehensive lines. It was the first major schools reform since Butler’s 1944 Education Act under Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who died in 1965.

    Expansion of HE was substantially driven by the colleges, still very much part of the local authority sector. The polytechnics would increasingly chafe at the bureaucratic controls of local authorities but it would be more than 20 years before the 1988 Education Reform Act ripped the polytechnics out of the local authority sector. In 1965 the replacement of the London County Council by the Greater London Council was big news for the expanding HE sector, especially because it entailed the creation of the Inner London Education Authority, responsible for no fewer than five of the 30 polytechnics, and a range of other specialist HE institutions. Nowadays that kind of restructuring would barely merit a mention in Times Higher Education, which itself was not even a glint in the eye of Brian Macarthur, the first editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement, not launched until 1971.

    I Can’t Explain

    The colleges to become polytechnics would soon be calling for ‘parity of esteem’ (“Got a feeling inside – can’t explain”). Although ‘poly’ would eventually be replaced in the vernacular by the execrable but inescapable ‘uni’, some features of the HE system proved extremely persistent. League tables had not yet made an appearance but would soon become not only persistent but pernicious. Some things, like HE hierarchies of esteem, seem to be always with us, just as Frank Herbert’s mediocre scifi novel Dune, first published in 1965, has recently seen yet another movie remake.

    A World of Our Own

    In contrast David Lodge, professor of English Literature at Birmingham University, would go from strength to strength, writing about what he knew best – “we’ll live in a world of our own”. 1965 was before his campus trilogy, rated by some as the best novels ever about university life, but in 1965 he did write about a PhD student, in The British Museum Is Falling Down. In the same year Philip Larkin, still only halfway through his twenty years’ service as Librarian at the University of Hull, was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.

    It’s Not Unusual

    For those whose memory is punctuated by sporting events there was still a year to wait before England’s triumph in the football World Cup, which sadly was unusual, indeed unique. A more usual hierarchy of football esteem began in 1965 with Liverpool’s first ever win in the FA Cup, and an era ended with Stanley Matthews’ final game in the English First Division. Tom Jones began his own era of success in 1965 with his first No 1 hit, It’s Not Unusual.

    Eve of Destruction?

    US president Lyndon Johnson announced the Great Society in his State of the Union address in January 1965, but Martin Luther King marched in Selma and  Montgomery. The first American troops arrived in Vietnam, and a Students for a Democratic Society demonstration against the war drew 25,000 people in Washington. Student protests, too, are always with us (”The Eastern world, it is exploding”).

    How sweet it is

    Dorothy Hodgkin had won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry just a year earlier, and in 1965 she was made a member of the Order of Merit. The Social Science Research Council was established in 1965. It was later renamed the Economic and Social Research Council in an early skirmish in the culture wars, precipitated by Keith Joseph as Education Secretary under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – who had been taught by Dorothy Hodgkin at Somerville College, Oxford.

    Act naturally

    The field of research into higher education was sparsely populated in 1965, but for the founders of the Society for Research into Higher Education it was a natural development to come together. The learned society they created has, in the 60 years since then, grown into an internationally-oriented group of researchers, dedicated to every kind of research into a global HE system which could scarcely have been dreamed of, but would surely have been celebrated, by SRHE’s founders. Let’s hang on, to what we’ve got.

    The Society has planned a range of activities to celebrate its platinum anniversary, including a series of blogs reflecting on changes to higher education during those 60 years. If you would like to contribute to the series (Help! I need somebody) please contact [email protected].

    Rob Cuthbert is editor of SRHE News and the SRHE Blog, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Management, University of the West of England and Joint Managing Partner, Practical Academics. Email [email protected]. Twitter/X @RobCuthbert.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

    Source link

  • HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (March 16, 2025)

    HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (March 16, 2025)

    International Frameworks

    With the right opportunities we can become AI makers, not takers
    Michael Webb.  FE Week. February 21, 2025.

    The article reflects on the UK’s AI Opportunities Action Plan, aiming to position the country as a leader in AI development rather than merely a consumer. It highlights the crucial role of education in addressing AI skills shortages and emphasizes the importance of focusing both on the immediate needs around AI literacy, but also with a clear eye on the future, as the balance moves to AI automation and to a stronger demand for uniquely human skills.

    Living guidelines on the responsible use of generative AI in research : ERA Forum Stakeholder’s document
    European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. March 2024.

    These guidelines include recommendations for researchers, recommendations for research organisations, as well as recommendations for research funding organisations. The key recommendations are summarized here.

    Industry Collaborations

    OpenAI Announces ‘NextGenAI’ Higher-Ed Consortium
    Kim Kozlowski. Government Technology.  March 4, 2025.

    OpenAI has launched the ‘NextGenAI’ consortium, committing $50M to support AI research and technology across 15 institutions, including the University of Michigan, the California State University system, the Harvard University, the MIT and the University of Oxford. This initiative aims to accelerate AI advancements by providing research grants, computing resources, and collaborative opportunities to address complex societal challenges.

    AI Literacy

    A President’s Journey to AI Adoption
    Cruz Rivera, J. L. Inside Higher Ed. March 13, 2025.

    José Luis Cruz Rivera, President of Northern Arizona University, shares his AI exploration journey. « As a university president, I’ve learned that responsible leadership sometimes means […] testing things out myself before asking others to dive in ». From using it to draft emails, he then started using it to analyze student performance data and create tailored learning materials, and even used it to navigate conflicting viewpoints and write his speechs – in addition to now using it for daily tasks.

    Teaching and Learning

    AI Tools in Society : Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking
    Gerlich, M. SSRN. January 14, 2025.

    This study investigates the relationship between AI tool usage and critical thinking skills, focusing on cognitive offloading as a mediating factor. The findings revealed a significant negative correlation between frequent AI tool usage and critical thinking abilities, mediated by increased cognitive offloading. Younger participants exhibited higher dependence on AI tools and lower critical thinking scores compared to older participants. Furthermore, higher educational attainment was associated with better critical thinking skills, regardless of AI usage. These results highlight the potential cognitive costs of AI tool reliance, emphasising the need for educational strategies that promote critical engagement with AI technologies.

    California went big on AI in universities. Canada should go smart instead
    Bates, S. University Affairs. March 12, 2025.

    In this opinion piece, Simon Bates, Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President for Teaching and Learning at UBC, reflects on how the ‘fricitonless efficiency’ promised by AI tools comes at a cost. « Learning is not frictionless. It requires struggle, persistence, iteration and deep focus. The risk of a too-hasty full scale AI adoption in universities is that it offers students a way around that struggle, replacing the hard cognitive labour of learning with quick, polished outputs that do little to build real understanding. […] The biggest danger of AI in education is not that students will cheat. It’s that they will miss the opportunity to build the skills that higher education is meant to cultivate. The ability to persist through complexity, to work through uncertainty, to engage in deep analytical thought — these are the foundations of expertise. They cannot be skipped over. »

    We shouldn’t sleepwalk into a “tech knows best” approach to university teaching
    Mace, R. et al. Times Higher Education. March 14, 2025.

    The article discusses the increasing use of generative AI tools like among university students, with usage rising from 53% in 2023-24 to 88% in 2024-25. It states that instead of banning these tools, instructors should ofcus on rethinking assessment strategies to integrate AI as a collaborative tool in academic work. The authors share a list of activities, grounded in the constructivist approach to education, that they have successfully used in their lectures that leverage AI to support teaching and learning.

    Accessibility & Digital Divide

    AI Will Not Be ‘the Great Leveler’ for Student Outcomes
    Richardson, S. and Redford, P. Inside Higher Ed. March 12, 2025.

    The authors share three reasons why AI tools are only deepening existing divides : 1) student overreliance on AI tools; 2) post-pandemic social skills deficit; and 3) business pivots. « If we hope to continue leveling the playing field for students who face barriers to entry, we must tackle AI head-on by teaching students to use tools responsibly and critically, not in a general sense, but specifically to improve their career readiness. Equally, career plans could be forward-thinking and linked to the careers created by AI, using market data to focus on which industries will grow. By evaluating student need on our campuses and responding to the movements of the current job market, we can create tailored training that allows students to successfully transition from higher education into a graduate-level career. »

    Source link

  • Open universities: between radical promise and market reality

    Open universities: between radical promise and market reality

    by Ourania Filippakou

    Open universities have long symbolised a radical departure from the exclusivity of conventional universities. Conceived as institutions of access, intellectual emancipation, and social transformation, they promised to disrupt rigid academic hierarchies and democratise knowledge. Yet, as higher education is increasingly reshaped by market logics, can open universities still claim to be engines of social progress, or have they become institutions that now reproduce the very inequalities they sought to dismantle?

    This question is not merely academic; it is profoundly political. Across the globe, democratic institutions are under siege, and the erosion of democracy is no longer an abstraction – it is unfolding in real time (cf EIU, 2024; Jones, 2025). The rise of far-right ideologies, resurgent racism, intensified attacks on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, and the erosion of protections for migrants and marginalised communities all point to a crisis of democracy that cannot be separated from the crisis of education (Giroux, 2025). As Giroux (1984) argues, education is never neutral; it can operate as both a potential site for fostering critical consciousness and resistance and a mechanism for reproducing systems of social control and domination. Similarly, Butler (2005) reminds us that the very categories of who counts as human, who is deemed grievable, and whose knowledge is legitimised are deeply political struggles.

    Open universities, once heralded as radical interventions in knowledge production, now find themselves entangled in these struggles. Increasingly, they are forced to reconcile their egalitarian aspirations with the ruthless pressures of neoliberalism and market-driven reforms. The challenge they face is no less than existential: to what extent can they uphold their role as spaces of intellectual and social transformation, or will they become further absorbed into the logics of commodification and control?

    My article (Filippakou, 2025) in Policy Reviews in Higher Education, ‘Two ideologies of openness: a comparative analysis of the Open Universities in the UK and Greece’, foregrounds a crucial but often overlooked dimension: the ideological battles that have shaped open universities over time. The UK Open University (OU) and the Hellenic Open University (HOU) exemplify two distinct yet converging trajectories. The UK OU, founded in the 1960s as part of a broader post-war commitment to social mobility, was a political project – an experiment in making university education available to those long excluded from elite institutions. The HOU, by contrast, emerged in the late 1990s within the European Union’s push for a knowledge economy, where lifelong learning was increasingly framed primarily in terms of workforce development. While both institutions embraced ‘openness’ as a defining principle, the meaning of that openness has shifted – from an egalitarian vision of education as a public good to a model struggling to reconcile social inclusion with neoliberal imperatives.

    A key insight of this analysis is that open universities do not merely widen participation; they reflect deeper contestations over the purpose of higher education itself. The UK OU’s early success inspired similar models worldwide, but today, relentless marketisation – rising tuition fees, budget cuts, and the growing encroachment of corporate interests – threatens to erode its founding ethos.

    Meanwhile, the HOU was shaped by a European policy landscape that framed openness not merely as intellectual emancipation but as economic necessity. Both cases illustrate the paradox of open universities: they continue to expand access, yet their structural constraints increasingly align them with the logic of precarity, credentialism, and market-driven efficiency.

    This struggle over education is central to the survival of democracy. Arendt (1961, 2005) warned that democracy is not self-sustaining; it depends on an informed citizenry capable of judgment, debate, and resistance. Higher education, in this sense, is not simply about skills or employability – it is about cultivating the capacity to think critically, to challenge authority, and to hold power to account (Giroux, 2019). Open universities were once at the forefront of this democratic mission. But as universities in general, and open universities in particular, become increasingly instrumentalised – shaped by political forces intent on suppressing dissent, commodifying learning, and hollowing out universities’ transformative potential – their role in sustaining democratic publics is under threat.

    The real question, then, is not simply whether open universities remain ‘open’ but how they define and enact this openness. To what extent do they serve as institutions of intellectual and civic transformation, or have they primarily been reduced to flexible degree factories, catering to market demands under the guise of accessibility? By comparing the UK and Greek experiences, this article aims to challenge readers to rethink the ideological stakes of openness in higher education today. The implications extend far beyond open universities themselves. The broader appeal of this analysis lies in its relevance to anyone interested in universities as sites of social change. Open universities are not just alternatives to conventional universities – they represent larger struggles over knowledge, democracy, and economic power. The creeping normalisation of authoritarian politics, the suppression of academic freedom, and the assault on marginalised voices in public discourse demand that we reclaim higher education as a site of resistance.

    Can open universities reclaim their radical promise? If higher education is to resist the encroachment of neoliberalism and reactionary politics, we must actively defend institutions that prioritise intellectual freedom, civic literacy, and higher education for the public good. The future of open universities – and higher education itself – depends not only on institutional policies but on whether scholars, educators, and students collectively resist these forces. The battle for openness is not just about access; it is about the kind of society we choose to build – for ourselves and the generations to come.

    Ourania Filippakou is a Professor of Education at Brunel University of London. Her research interrogates the politics of higher education, examining universities as contested spaces where power, inequality, and resistance intersect. Rooted in critical traditions, she explores how higher education can foster social justice, equity, and transformative change.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

    Source link

  • What’s in a name? That which we call a university…

    What’s in a name? That which we call a university…

    by Rob Cuthbert

    In England the use of the title ‘university’ is regulated by law, a duty which now lies with the regulator, the Office for Students (OfS). When a new institution is created, or when an existing institution wishes to change its name, the OfS must consult on the proposed new name and may or may not approve it after consideration of responses to the consultation. The responsible agency for naming was once simply the Privy Council, a responsibility transferred to the OfS with the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. For existing older universities where legislative change is needed, the Privy Council must also still approve, but will only do so with a letter of support from the OfS. The arrangements were helpfully summarised in a blog by David Kernohan and Michael Salmon of Wonkhe on 8 April 2024, before most of the recent changes had been decided.

    That which we call a university would probably not smell quite as sweet if it could not use the university title, and with its new power the OfS has made a series of decisions which risk putting it in bad odour. In July 2024 it allowed AECC University College to call itself the Health Sciences University. Although AECC University College was a perfectly respectable provider of health-related courses, this name change surely flew in the face of the many larger and prestigious universities which had an apparently greater claim to expertise in both teaching and research in health sciences. The criteria for name changes are set out by the OfS: “The OfS will assess whether the provider meets the criteria for university college or university title and will, in particular: …  Determine whether the provider’s chosen title may be, or may have the potential to be, confusing.” It is hard to see how that criterion was satisfied in the case of the Health Sciences University.

    Even worse was to come. In 2024 Bolton University applied to use the title University of Greater Manchester, despite the large and looming presence of both Manchester University and Manchester Metropolitan University. And the OfS said yes. If you google the names Bolton or Greater Manchester University you may even find the University of Bolton Manchester, which is neither the University of Bolton nor the University of Manchester, but is “Partnered with the University of Bolton and situated within the centre of Manchester” – indeed, very near the Oxford Road heartland location of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan universities.

    This is rather more confusing and misleading than University Academy 92, founded by a group of famous football team-mates at Manchester United, formed in August 2017 and based near Old Trafford. Wikipedia says that “the approval by the Department of Education (DoE) to allow UA92 the use of ‘University Academy 92’ was questioned with critics claiming the decision to approve the use of the name makes it ‘too easy’ for new providers to use ‘university’ in a new institution’s name”. This criticism continues to have some merit, but a high-profile football-related initiative, now broadened, is perhaps less likely to cause any confusion in the minds of its potential students. It may be significant that it was created at the same time as the HERA legislation was enacted, with government perhaps relaxing its grip in the last exercise of university title approval powers before the Privy Council handed over to the OfS. UA92 was and continues to be a deliverer of degrees validated by Lancaster University. In 2024 the OfS the University of Central Lancashire applied to be renamed the University of Lancashire, despite the obvious potential confusion with Lancaster University. And the OfS said yes.

    It was not ever thus. The Privy Council would consult and take serious account of responses to consultation, especially from existing universities, as it did after the Further and Higher Education 1992 when 30 or so polytechnics were granted university title. A massive renaming exercise was carefully managed under the Privy Council’s watchful eye. As someone centrally involved in one such exercise, at Bristol Polytechnic, I know that the Privy Council would not allow liberties to be taken. The renaming exercise naturally stretched over many months; the Polytechnic conducted its own consultations both among its staff and students, but also much more widely in schools and other agencies across the South West region. Throughout that period, in a longstanding joke, the Polytechnic Director playfully mocked the Vice-Chancellor of Bristol University by suggesting that the polytechnic might seek to become the ‘Greater Bristol University’. It was a joke because all parties knew that the Privy Council, quite properly, would never countenance such a confusing and misleading proposal.

    How would that name change play out now? In the words (almost) of Cole Porter: “In olden days a glimpse of mocking was looked on as something shocking, now heaven knows, anything goes.”

    Rob Cuthbert is the editor of SRHE News and Blog, and a partner in the Practical Academics consultancy. He was previously Deputy Vice-Chancellor and professor of higher education management at the University of the West of England.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

    Source link

  • HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (January 31, 2025)

    HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (January 31, 2025)

    Transformation of education

    Leading Through Disruption: Higher Education Leaders Assess AI’s Impacts on Teaching and Learning

    Rainie, L. and Watson, E. AAC&U and Elon University.

    Report from a survey of 337 college and university leaders that provides a status report on the fast-moving changes taking place on US campuses. Key data takeaways include the fact faculty use of AI tools trails significantly behind student use, more than a third of leaders surveyed perceive their institution to be below average or behind others in using GenAI tools, 59% say that cheating has increased on their campus since GenAI tools have become widely available, and 45% think the impact of GenAI on their institutions in the next five years will be more positive than negative.

    Four objectives to guide artificial intelligence’s impact on higher education

    Aldridge, S. Times Higher Education. January 27th, 2025

    The four objectives are: 1) ensure that curricula prepare students to use AI in their careers and to add human skills value to help them success in parallel of expanded use of AI; 2) employ AI-based capacities to enhance the effectiveness and value of the education delivered; 3) leverage AI to address specific pedagogical and administrative challenges; and 4) address pitfalls and shortcomings of using AI in higher ed, and develop mechanisms to anticipate and respond to emerging challenges.

    Global perspectives

    DeepSeek harnesses links with Chinese universities in talent war

    Packer, H. Times Higher Education. January 31st, 2025

    The success of artificial intelligence platform DeepSeek, which was developed by a relatively young team including graduates and current students from leading Chinese universities, could encourage more students to pursue opportunities at home amid a global race for talent, experts have predicted.

    Teaching and learning

    Trends in AI for student assessment – A roller coaster ride

    MacGregor, K. University World News. January 25th, 2025

    Insights from (and recording of) the University World News webinar “Trends in AI for student assessment”, held on January 21st. 6% of audience members said that they did not face significant challenges in using GenAI for assessment, 53% identified “verifying the accuracy and validity of AI-generated results” as a challenge, 49% said they lacked training or expertise in using GenAI tools, 45% identified “difficulty integrating AI tools within current assessment systems”, 41% were challenged in addressing ethical concerns, 30% found “ensuring fairness and reducing bias in AI-based assessments” challenging, 25% identified “protecting student data privacy and security” as a challenge, and 19% said “resistance to adopting AI-driven assessment” was challenging.

    Open access

    Charting a course for open education resources in an AI era

    Wang, T. and Mishra, S. University World News. January 24th, 2025

    The digital transformation of higher education has positioned open educational resources (OER) as essential digital public goods for the global knowledge commons. As emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), reshape how educational content is created, adapted and distributed, the OER movement faces both unprecedented opportunities and significant challenges in fulfilling its mission of democratising knowledge access.

    The Dubai Declaration on OER, released after the 3rd UNESCO World OER Congress held in November 2024, addresses pressing questions about AI’s role in open education.

    Source link

  • OfS with their heads: is Cromwell to blame?

    OfS with their heads: is Cromwell to blame?

    by Paul Temple

    If you’ve been watching the BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, you may like me have been surprised by how little higher education featured in the story. (All right, they couldn’t cover every aspect of sixteenth-century English life, but still.) England’s two universities at that time (Scotland of course had four by the end of the sixteenth century) had essential roles as the principal providers of the skilled workforces that expanding commercial, administrative, and legal functions needed – although where Thomas Cromwell himself (played by Mark Rylance) gained his legal and administrative skills remains a mystery: presumably they were picked up during his travels as a young man around Europe. As a study covering a slightly earlier period put it, the medieval university professionalized knowledge, with increasingly specialised courses fitting students for careers in secular professions (Leff, 1968). Religious instruction, sometimes assumed to be the main function of the pre-modern university, was largely undertaken in separate monastic and cathedral schools. These might have developed into universities with secular roles, but instead in England largely faded away.

    The significance of England’s two universities is indicated by the powers that Cromwell took to control them in his ascent through English government in the 1530s. At Oxford, he saved the institution that his patron Cardinal Wolsey had established as Cardinal College and turned it into Christ Church College; and in 1534 “wrested the Visitorship of New College [by then 155 years old] from its customary holder as Bishop of Winchester, Stephen Gardiner” (MacCulloch, 2018: 275) – Cromwell’s implacable enemy, played creepily in the series by Mark Gatiss. This created another grudge that Gardiner held against Cromwell, and which he would repay with interest. Tensions surrounding what we would now call the governance of higher education had surprisingly important ramifications in the politics of the Tudor court. (Wolsey also established in 1528 a college in Ipswich, his place of birth, but for a number of complicated reasons it was short-lived, and so never, as it presumably might have done, became England’s third university.)

    Medieval and early-modern Oxford University was continually engaged in disputes, sometimes violent ones, with the city, and Cromwell was apparently regularly called in to arbitrate. This was the man at the very centre of the administration of the English state: if the Cabinet Secretary dropped in to help your University sort out a planning problem with the local council, it would indicate, I think, that we were looking at a big deal nationally. (We may gain a sense of the scale of these town vs gown disputes by referring to what are known as the St Scholastica’s Day riots of 1354 which led to the deaths of 62 Oxford scholars. As Oxford student numbers have been estimated at around 1,500 at this time, this implies a remarkable death toll of about 4% of the student population. Not for the last time in troubles involving university students, drink seems to have been implicated.)

    It seems that Cambridge University felt that they were getting a bit left out, and so in 1534 offered Cromwell the position of High Steward and a year later elected him Chancellor, in place of Bishop John Fisher, who was executed that year – although not, it seems, as a result of any failures in university leadership (MacCulloch, 2018: 276); so unfortunately we cannot properly read this as a warning about the risks involved in university management. It seems that Cromwell’s first job at Cambridge was to deal with the town vs gown hostilities centred around the annual fair held on Stourbridge Common: presumably he was by now something of an expert in managing these conflicts. He was also, it seems, interested in what we would now call curriculum reform, despite having no personal experience of university study: as MacCulloch remarks, under Cromwell’s direction, this was the first time “government had intruded on the internal affairs of Oxford and Cambridge, an interference that has never thereafter ceased” (306). Some of the blame for the activities of the Office for Students must therefore be traceable back to Thomas Cromwell: how did Hilary Mantel miss this plot angle?

    References

    Leff, G (1968) Paris and Oxford Universities in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries New York, NY: Wiley

    MacCulloch, D (2018) Thomas Cromwell: A Life London: Allen Lane

    Dr Paul Temple is Honorary Associate Professor in the Centre for Higher Education Studies, UCL Institute of Education.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

    Source link

  • Happy New Year | SRHE Blog

    Happy New Year | SRHE Blog

    by Rob Cuthbert

    SRHE News is glad to bring you the Augur Report, its prognostications for 2025, based on extensive research into the works of Nostradamus, Old Moore’s Almanac and Mystic Meg.

    January

    • Donald Trump resumes the US Presidency and announces that free speech in HE requires him to ban the use of the words Diversity, Equality and Inclusion in US HE. Elon Musk argues that this should  also be applied in the UK.
    • UUK launches another major campaign to point out that most universities really are in serious financial trouble.
    • UCEA points out the difficulty of affording any staff salary increases at all in the present climate.
    • Vice-chancellors point out that the financial difficulties facing their institutions would not be significantly alleviated if they took a 50% cut in salary, and competitive salaries are essential to enable Britain’s world class universities to recruit and retain the best leaders. Especially when it has become so difficult to recruit staff.
    • The OfS announces a concordat with Russian higher education to support a major increase in its use of AI, using Russian cyber experts. The first expansion of AI will be in the approval of new university titles: the new AI Department will be known as the Nomenklatura Department. The criteria remain unchanged: the OfS “will consult on a provider’s proposed new name and assess the extent to which the proposed name is confusing or misleading”.
    • The OfS is already the investigating authority, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner for all HE infractions, and now seeks the power to exile to Siberia any academics complicit in breaching Condition of Registration B2. Government agrees in the interests of reducing net migration.

    February

    • After the disappointing application figures for 2025 entry, UCAS launches a major advertising campaign to point out that the increase in undergraduate fees won’t make any difference to most student debt repayments.
    • UUK launches a new campaign to point out that the increase in undergraduate fees won’t make any difference to the financial troubles in most universities.
    • Government announces that even after all those new teachers are appointed there might be a bit left over for HE from the proceeds of VAT on private school fees. Teacher educators point out that after yet another year of missed targets in teacher training there is no-one qualified to apply for the new jobs in schools.
    • OfS approves a name change from Anglia Ruskin University to the University of Cambridge(shire).

    March

    • The OfS approves a name change from Oxford Brookes University to University of Oxford(shire).
    • UUK relaunches its campaign: “Most universities really are in deep financial trouble, honest.”
    • Government says there might still be something left for HE from VAT on school fees, and Elon Musk might have a point.
    • The interim temporary Archbishop of Canterbury says she will renounce the power of the Archbishop to award degrees.

    April

    • The OfS approves a name change from University of the West of England to the Greater Bristol University.
    • The OfS announces a major increase in the use of AI, to extend to all interventions on quality/standards/ breach of conditions of registration. The OfS Nomenklatura Department has been renamed, partly because no-one remembers the Soviet Union any more, and also because it was too likely to cause confusion with the rest of the OfS, who are already party-appointed bureaucrats. The suggested new name, the Behan Bots – conscripted to work for low pay, completely in the dark – is rejected because nobody remembers the Second World War any more and in any case it was too likely to cause confusion with existing university staff. OfS CEO Susan Lapworth says the new Department will now be known as the Laptops.
    • The OfS announces a concordat with Chinese higher education which will start with a new student recruitment campaign in the North East: “Huawei the lads”.

    May

    • The OfS approves a name change from Coventry University to Warwick(shire) University.
    • Government says sorry – even though they couldn’t appoint any new teachers there was nothing left from VAT on school fees because they diverted it to fill the £22billion hole in the public finances. It issues guidance on the use of language in HE, known as the Musk Directive.
    • UUK’s Taskforce on Efficiency and Transformation in Higher Education announces that it is in advanced talks with Government about restructuring the HE sector in England. Luckily the Taskforce chair is a lawyer specialising in mergers and acquisitions.

    June

    • The OfS approves a name change from Birmingham City University to the Greater Birmingham University
    • GuildHE issues a reminder that it has no formal connection with the Church of England or any other faiths but remains committed to whatever you are allowed to call diversity, equity and inclusion since the Musk Directive.
    • Canterbury Christ Church University is renamed University of Kent Two. OfS says this is unlikely to cause confusion among international students, especially since Kent is so near to Paris.
    • Bishop Grosseteste University becomes the University of Lincoln Two But We Were Here First. Leeds Beckett, Northumbria, Sheffield Hallam, Greater Birmingham and Greater Bristol consider name changes.
    • UUK issues a media release saying “we did warn you” as 30% of universities merge or close. OfS says everything will be OK, because all universities are required to have plans for an orderly exit from the market. Wimbledon fortnight begins and UCAS says “you cannot be serious”.

    July

    • OfS approves a name change for Liverpool John Moores to Liverpools University.
    • The BBC is forced to suspend filming of the new series of University Challenge after 30% of universities appearing have merged, have new names or have announced their intention to close.

    August

    • UCAS announces that the 30% reduction in available university places has luckily been matched by an equivalent fall in the number of applicants.
    • Government announces its three priorities for HE – reduction, reduction, reduction – will apply particularly to the numbers of students from all disadvantaged groups.

    September

    • The OfS approves its own name change from the Office for Students to the Office with No Students on the Board (ONO).

    October

    • Government announces its new higher education policy, with the establishment of a new corporation to take over all the universities not in a position to complain, provisionally titled the Great British University. ONO says this is unlikely to cause confusion, but governments in Wales and Scotland say they are confused since all the universities in the GBU are in England. The Northern Ireland Assembly say they’re glad it wasn’t the Great UK University, or they would have been confused. The new HE policy includes a pledge/mission/milestone promising net zero admissions by 2030, or maybe 2035.
    • The last Bishop to leave the Church of England is asked to remember to switch off all the lights to comply with its Net Zero Bishops pledge.

    November

    • The Greater London Non-University College of Monkey Business publishes its annual Report and Accounts: income £925,000; expenditure £925,000, all annual salary for the principal. It  recruited 100 students but they all left at the end of the year without leaving forwarding addresses. Having no students at all on its Board it claims to be completely aligned with the regulator.

    December

    • ONO announces it has breached its own conditions of registration and has removed itself from the Register of Approved Regulators. Dusting down a forgotten part of the Higher Education and Research Act (2017) it issues an urgent appeal – Quick, Anyone? Anyone! – for a new designated quality body to replace itself, which becomes known as the QAA appeal.
    • A High Court judgment finds that publishers have mis-sold the copyright of academics to multinational AI corporations and orders financial compensation, known as Publishers Pay Instead (PPI). Publishers set aside £100billion.
    • Universities launch a counter claim, asserting their ownership of, or failing that a pretty strong  interest in, copyright of academics in their employ, and sue to recover the costs of journal subscriptions and transitional agreements. Publishers set aside a further £100billion.
    • Multinational AI corporation share prices, now quoted only in bitcoin, continue to rise.
    • The new Wallace and Gromit film, Academic Free-Don, is set in a university where the inmates are planning a mass escape. When they realise that their new zero-hours contracts allow them to leave at any time, they apply for exile to Siberia, where they expect better pay and conditions of employment.
    • The theme for the 2026 SRHE Conference is announced: “Where do we go from here?”

    SRHE News is a not-for-prophet enterprise. No octopuses were harmed in the making of this editorial.

    SRHE News Editor Rob Cuthbert is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Management, University of the West of England and Joint Managing Partner, Practical Academics [email protected]. Twitter @RobCuthbert

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

    Source link

  • HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (January 17, 2025)

    HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (January 17, 2025)

    Transformation of education

    The McDonaldisation of higher education in the age of AI

    Yoonil Auh, J. University World News. December 11th, 2024.

    Reflection on how AI’s impact on higher education aligns with the principles of McDonaldisation (efficiency, calculability, predictability and control), what opportunities and challenges it creates, and how institutions are responding

    Decolonization

    AI and digital neocolonialism: Unintended impacts on universities

    Yoonil Auh, J. University World News. July 12th, 2024. 

    The evolution of AI risks reinforcing neocolonial patterns, underscoring the complex ethical implications associated with their deployment and broader impact

    Workforce preparation

    As workers seek guidance on AI use, employers value skilled graduates

    Ascione, L. eCampusNews. December 9th, 2024.

    A new Wiley survey highlights that 40% of respondents struggle to understand how to integrate AI into their work and 75% lack confidence in AI use, while 34% of managers feel equipped to support AI integration

    California students want careers in AI. Here’s how colleges are meeting that demand

    Brumer, D. and Garza, J. Cal Matters. October 20th, 2024. 

    California’s governor announced the first statewide partnership with a tech firm, Nvidia, to bring AI curriculum, resources and opportunities to California’s public higher education institutions. The partnership will bring AI tools to community colleges first.

    Let’s equip the next generation of business leaders with an ethical compass

    Côrte-Real, A. Times Higher Education. October 22nd, 2024. 

    In a world driven by AI, focusing on human connections and understanding is essential for achieving success. While AI can standardize many processes, it is the unique human skills – such as empathy, creativity, and critical thinking – that will continue to set individuals and organizations apart.

    How employer demand trends across two countries demonstrate need for AI skills

    Stevens, K. EAB. October 10th, 2024. 

    Study reviewing employer demands in the US and in Ireland to better understand how demand for AI skills differ across countries, and examine if these differences are significant enough to require targeted curricular design by country

    Research

    We’re living in a world of artificial intelligence – it’s academic publishing that needs to change

    Moorhouse, B. Times Higher Education. December 13th, 2024.

    Suggestions to shift mindsets towards GenAI tools to restore trust in academic publishing

    Teaching and learning

    The AI-Generated Textbook That’s Making Academics Nervous

    Palmer, K. Inside Higher Ed. December 13th, 2024. 

    A comparative literature professor at UCLA used AI to generate the textbook for her medieval literature course notably with the aim to make course material more financially accessible to her students – but the academic community reacted strongly

    GenAI impedes student learning, hitting exam performance

    Sawahel, W. University World News. December 12th, 2024.

    A study conducted in Germany using GenAI detection systems showed that students who used GenAI scored significantly lower in essays

    The renaissance of the essay starts here

    Gordon, C. and Compton, M. Times Higher Education. December 9th, 2024. 

    A group of academics from King’s College London, the London School of Economics and Political Science, the University of Sydney and Richmond American University came together to draft a manifesto on the future of the essay in the age of AI, where they highlight problems and opportunities related to the use of essays, and propose ways to rejuvenate its use

    These AI tools can help prepare future programmers for the workplace

    Rao, R. Times Higher Education. December 9th, 2024.

    Reflection on how curricula should incorporate the use of AI tools, with a specific focus on programming courses

    The future is hybrid: Colleges begin to reimagine learning in an AI world

    McMurtrie, B. The Chronicle of Higher Education. October 3rd, 2024.

    Reflection on the state of AI integration in teaching and learning across the US

    Academic integrity

    Survey suggests students do not see use of AI as cheating

    Qiriazi, V. et al. University World News. December 11th, 2024. 

    Overview of topics discussed at the recent plenary of the Council of Europe Platform on Ethics, Transparency and Integrity in Education

    Focusing on GenAI detection is a no-win approach for instructors

    Berdahl, L. University Affairs. December 11th, 2024

    Reflection on potential equity, ethical, and workload implications of AI detection 

    The Goldilocks effect: finding ‘just right’ in the AI era

    MacCallum, K. Times Higher Education. October 28th, 2024. 

    Discussion on when AI use is ‘too much’ versus when it is ‘just right’, and how instructors can allow students to use GenAI tools while still maintaining ownership of their work

    Source link

  • Re-capturing the early 80s | HESA

    Re-capturing the early 80s | HESA

    Most of the time when I talk about the history of university financing, I show a chart that looks like this, showing that since 1980 government funding to the sector is up by a factor of about 2.3 after inflation over the last 40-odd years, while total funding is up by a factor of 3.6.

    Figure 1: Canadian University Income by source, 1979-80 to 2022-23, in billions of constant $2022

    That’s just a straight up expression of how universities get their money. But what it doesn’t take account of are changes in enrolment, which as Figure 2 shows, were a pretty big deal. Universities have admitted a *lot* more students over time. The university system has nearly doubled since the end of the 1990s and nearly tripled since the start of the 1990s.

    Figure 2: Full-time Equivalent Enrolment, Canada, Universities, 1978-79 to 2022-23

    So, the question is, really, how have funding pattern changes interacted with changes in enrolment? Well, folks, wonder no more, because I have toiled through some unbelievably badly-organized excel data to bring you funding data on this that goes back to the 1980s (I did a version of this back here, but I only captured national-level data—the toil here involved getting data granular enough to look at individual provinces). Buckle up for a better understanding of how we got to our present state!

    Figure 3 is what I would call the headline graph: University income per student by source, from 1980-81 to the present, in constant $2022. Naturally, it looks a bit like Figure 1, but more muted because it takes enrolment growth into account.

    Figure 3: University income per student by source, from 1980-81 to the present, in constant $2022

    There’s nothing revolutionary here, but it shows a couple of things quite clearly. First, government funding per-student has been falling for most of the past 40 years.; the brief period from about 1999 to 2009 stands out as the exception rather than the norm. Second, despite that, total funding per student is still quite high compared with the 1990s. Institutions have found ways to replace government income with income from other sources. That doesn’t mean the quality of the money is the same. As I have said before, hustling for money incurs costs that don’t occur if governments are just writing cheques.

    As usual, though, looking at the national picture often disguises variation at the provincial level. Let’s drill one level down and see what happened to government spending at the sub-national level. A quick note here: “government spending” means *all* government spending, not just provincial government spending. So, Ontario and Quebec probably look better than they otherwise would because they receive an outsized chunk of federal government research spending, while the Atlantic provinces probably look worse. I doubt the numbers are affected much because overall revenues from federal sources are pretty small compared to provincial ones, but it’s worth keeping in mind as you read the following.

    Figure 4 looks at government spending per student in the “big three” provinces which make up over 75% of the Canadian post-secondary system. Nationally, per-student spending fell from $22,800 per year to $17,600 per year. But there are differences here: Ontario spent the entire 42-year period below that average, while BC and Quebec spent nearly all that period above it. Quebec has notably seen very little in terms of per-student fluctuations, while BC has been more volatile. Ontario saw a recovery in spending during the McGuinty years, but then has experienced a drop of about 35%. Of note, perhaps is that most of this decline happened before the arrival of the current Ford government.

    Figure 4: Per-Student Income from Government Sources, in thousands of constant $2022, Canada and the “Big Three” provinces, 1980-81 to 2022-23

    Figure 5 shows that spending volatility was much higher in the three oil provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland & Labrador. All three provinces spent virtually the entirety of our period with above-average spending levels but the gap between these provinces and the national average was quite large both in the early 1980s and from about 2005 onwards: i.e. when oil prices were at their highest. Alberta of course has seen per-student funding drop by about 50% in the last fifteen years, but at the same time, it is close to where it was 25 years ago. So, was it the dramatic fall or the precipitous rise that was the outlier?

    Figure 5: Per-Student Income from Government Sources, in thousands of constant $2022, Canada and the “Oil provinces”, 1980-81 to 2022-23

    Figure 6 shows the other four provinces for the sake of completeness. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were the lowest spenders in the country for most of the period we’re looking at, only catching up to the national average in the mid-aughts. Interestingly, the two provinces took two different paths to raise per-student spending: Nova Scotia did it almost entirely by raising spending, while in New Brunswick this feat was to a considerable extent “achieved” by a significant fall in student numbers (this is a ratio, folks, both the numerator and the denominator matter!).

    Figure 6: Per-Student Income from Government Sources, in thousands of constant $2022, Canada and selected provinces, 1980-81 to 2022-23

    An interesting question, of course, is what it would have cost to have kept public spending at 1980 per-student levels. And it’s an interesting question, because remember, total spending did in fact rise quite substantially (see Figure 1): it just didn’t rise as fast as student numbers. So, in Figure 7, I show what it would have cost to keep per-student expenditures stable at 1980-81 levels both if student numbers had stayed constant, and what it would have meant in practice given actual student numbers.

    Figure 7: Funds required to return to 1980-81 levels of per-student government investment in universities, Canada, in millions of constant $2022

    Weird-looking graph, right? But here’s how to interpret it. Per-student public funding did fall in the 80s and early 90s. But it rose again in the early aughts, to the point where per-student funding went back to where it was in 1980, even though the number of students in the system had doubled in the meanwhile. From about 2008 onwards, though, public investment started falling off again in per-student terms, going back to mid/late-90s levels even as overall student numbers continued to rise. We are now at the point where getting back to the levels of 1980-81, or even just 2007-08, would require a rise of between $6 and $6.5 billion dollars.

    Anyways, that’s enough sunshine for one morning. Have a great day.

    Source link