Tag: Action

  • April 17, 2025 National Day of Action for Higher Ed (Higher Ed Labor United)

    April 17, 2025 National Day of Action for Higher Ed (Higher Ed Labor United)

    On April 17, HELU is partnering with the Coalition for Action in Higher Education (CAHE) for the National Day of Action for Higher Education. There are more than 175 events planned in 44 states for April 17. We urge you to join us however you can, either in-person or online.

    As campus workers, students, and community members, we have a
    unique power and responsibility to exercise our collective voice in this
    moment of turmoil. It is our labor and our ideas which sustain higher
    education, and higher education sustains our economy and communities.

    The April 17 National Day of Action for Higher Education asserts our voice and our power, in a myriad of ways that reflect the diversity of our colleges and universities. 

    Learn more and find an action near you. 
     

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  • How to Participate in April 17 Day of Action for Higher Education

    How to Participate in April 17 Day of Action for Higher Education

    Higher Education Inquirer readers are encouraged to participate in Day of Action for Higher Education on Thursday, April 17.  For more information, visit the Day of Action page at the the Coalition for Action in Higher Education website. The website also includes resources. The coalition includes the Debt Collective, AAUP, and Higher Education Labor United.

     

     

     

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  • Communicate, repeat and compensate – OfS issues principles over industrial action

    Communicate, repeat and compensate – OfS issues principles over industrial action

    University and College Union (UCU) staged a national marking and assessment boycott (MAB) – delaying graduations, job starts, and transitions to postgraduate study.

    UCU members took the action to tackle disputes including headline pay, gender and minority ethnic pay gaps, staff workload and the casualisation across the sector.

    Whenever there’s industrial action, the hope in Carlow St is that students will see the bigger picture – but this time around, at least for some students in some universities, the impact was significant. At the time, UCU estimated that 30,000 students were unable to graduate on time or were affected in some other way.

    In the aftermath, the Commons Education Committee held a mini inquiry to investigate the impact – it wrote to the then Conservative government to raise concerns about the lack of data, the role of the Office for Students (OfS) and the lack of clarity over students’ rights, and the eventual (post election) reply was predictably weak.

    Now, two years on, OfS has published research that was commissioned to develop an understanding of what the impacts were from a student perspective – along with guidance for institutions on protecting the interests of students during industrial action, and a webinar event planned for mid-May on the regulator’s expectations on how providers should support students before, during and after industrial action.

    OfS first ran a text-based focus group via YouGov in July 2024 that discussed short- and long-term impacts, what information they got from their institutions, and how those institutions handled the situation. A quantitative survey followed that gathered 763 responses (279 undergrads, 284 postgrads, and 200 graduates) that had been studying at impacted institutions during the boycott. You’d not be diving into demographic splits on that sample size.

    The polling drilled into how the industrial action affected their academic lives – immediately and over time – along with the comms they received from their universities, and how they viewed their rights as students.

    On the top line

    In a “topline” results report and associated student insights brief, we learn that the industrial action caused delayed or unmarked coursework (53 per cent) and exams (46 per cent), reduced lecture time (68 per cent), and decreased contact with staff.

    Most impacted students reported negative effects on academic work quality (49 per cent) and grades (42 per cent). The MAB’s psychological impact was significant – with 41 per cent reporting increased stress, 32 per cent experiencing poorer mental health, and 15-18 per cent noting negative effects on their social lives.

    One student is quoted as follows:

    I was waiting for the result of a resit that the progression of my masters’ depended upon but it was delayed so much I had to pay for the next module and would not get the results until halfway through.

    International students faced particular challenges, with visa uncertainties arising from delayed results and qualifications. Some students couldn’t attend graduation ceremonies because their results came too late:

    I didn’t manage to get graduation tickets in time due to how late results were, so I didn’t have a graduation ceremony.

    Communication varied considerably across institutions – with most updates coming through emails (65 per cent) rather than during lectures (22 per cent). Students rated information from individual lecturers (78 per cent satisfaction) more highly than university-wide communications (64 per cent satisfaction).

    Many students in the focus group:

    …were not told which of their modules would be affected, or when they would get their marks and feedback.

    OfS says that the institutional response was inconsistent across the higher education sector. Students directly affected by the MAB expressed significantly higher dissatisfaction (54 per cent) with their university’s handling of the situation compared to unaffected students (18 per cent). Just 46 per cent of affected students received alternatives or compensation, primarily through “no detriment” policies adapted from those developed during the Covid era (26 per cent).

    Financial compensation and rights awareness was low – with only 30 per cent knowing they could request it, and a mere 9 per cent successfully receiving any. The boycott also negatively impacted perceptions of education quality (38 per cent reporting a decrease) and value for money (41 per cent reporting a decrease), with one student noting:

    I ended up with a [postgraduate diploma] instead of my MSc, and I came out with a merit instead of a distinction.

    The brief does note that universities employed various mitigation strategies, including awarding interim degree classifications, guaranteeing minimum classifications, improving mental health support, reallocating marking responsibilities, and engaging with employers to request flexibility for affected graduates.

    Were they OK? Some students felt their institutions responded well, others reported that the experience contributed to decisions not to pursue further studies or work in higher education, with 42 per cent reporting decreased trust in their universities.

    Behind the screams

    Much of that won’t come as a surprise – although the sheer scale of the suggested impacts, as well as their depth and breadth on individual students (esp rer mental health and international students) ought to invigorate debates about the morality of the tactic, and how universities handled it to limit legal or financial exposure.

    Arguably of more interest is the letter and “regulatory statement” that accompanies the publication from John Blake, Director for Fair Access and Participation.

    Re-stressing that it’s not OfS’ role to intervene in labour disputes, Blake expresses concern about how strikes and the MAB disrupted students’ academic experiences, notes inconsistencies in institutional responses, sets out an aim to establish clearer expectations for fair treatment for all students in any similar future scenarios.

    And there’s a fascinating section on compensation:

    We want to be clear that we don’t see compensation as a substitute for the holistic experience of intellectual, professional and personal development that a student should expect from their higher education. Institutions should continue to focus their efforts during industrial action on delivering the education that students expect. The inclusion of an expectation in relation to compensation does, though, reflect the rights students have under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

    Given that many students got neither, the clear implication is that a large number of students should have received both.

    Six principles

    The core of the guidance letter then manifests in six principles:

    1. Providers must remove contractual terms that inappropriately limit liability to students during staff industrial action or other circumstances within the provider’s control, as these breach consumer protection law.
    2. Effective contingency plans must be developed to minimise disruption to students during industrial action, ensuring plans are actionable, timely, and protect qualification integrity.
    3. When implementing contingency plans, providers should prioritise education delivery by: first avoiding impacts on students; if not possible, making minimal changes; and if necessary, providing timely repeat performance of missed teaching or assessment.
    4. Fair compensation must be paid when contingency plans fail to deliver promised aspects of student experience, particularly for missed teaching without timely replacement, delayed assessment marking, or delayed progression decisions affecting jobs or visa status.
    5. Clear communication with students is essential, including transparent information about rescheduled activities or compensation, with proactive identification of eligible students rather than requiring them to submit claims.
    6. Providers must submit reportable events about industrial action to the Office for Students (OfS) in accordance with established regulatory requirements.

    It’s an interesting list. The first one on the inclusion of industrial action in so-called “force majeure” clauses in student contracts – which limit liability for events that are outside of the predictability or control of of providers – is a long-running passive-aggressive row between the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and OfS on one side, and providers on the other.

    OfS has previously published a referral to National Trading Standards involving the University of Manchester’s contract – but my spreadsheet suggests that there’s a large number of providers that either haven’t seen that, or are digging in for a battle over it.

    That may be partly because those sorts of clauses – and CMA’s advice on them (which OfS requires providers to pay “due regard to”) – are a key point of dispute in the ongoing Student Group Claim, the UCL portion of which won’t get to court until early 2026.

    From a student point of view, if those clauses shouldn’t exist, the snail’s pace of enforcement on this is as baffling as it is frustrating.

    There won’t be many providers that weren’t developing contingency plans, notwithstanding that they can always be improved – and the one-two-three-four punch of avoid, adjust, repeat or compensate reflects (and translates) the position under consumer law.

    Of course some will argue that a legal duty to undertake any/all of those steps under consumer law depends on those force majeure clauses not existing or being unlawful – and as it stands there’s a major silent standoff that’s unhelpful.

    Even if you just look at compensation, the survey fails to differentiate between compensation paid for breach of contract, and “goodwill” payments where no such breach has been accepted by providers. As far as I’m aware, the former was vanishingly rare.

    The other issue, of course, is with punch three of four – where university managements satisfy themselves that once a dispute is over, teaching or support is rescheduled “because we told them to”, despite the fact that most heads of department find it hard to actually implement those instructions with UCU members.

    The “proactive identification of eligible students” for “repeat performance” or compensation is interesting too – especially over the latter, providers have long relied on students having to make complaints in order to get redress. This not only depends on the breach of contract or not issue being resolved, it also raises questions for universities’ legal advisors and insurers about the relative risks of doing as John Blake says, or waiting for students to raise concerns.

    But as well as all of that, there’s three things we ought to be surprised not to see.

    What’s missing?

    For a set of documents seeped in the translation of consumer protection to a higher education setting, there’s nothing on the extent to which any alternative arrangements in a MAB – especially alternative arrangements over marking – should still be carried out with reasonable skill and care. Academic judgement can’t be challenged, but only if that judgement has been carried out in the way we might expect it to be by people who know their onions. That was a major issue in the dispute for plenty of students, even if it wasn’t a big issue in the polling.

    The second is the lack of answer to the questions raised both in the polling and by the Commons Education Committee – which concern students’ understanding of what their rights are. If OfS thinks that it can vaguely pressure providers into proactively identifying students entitled to wads of cash, it’s misunderstanding the countervailing pressures on providers in similar ways to those identified by Mills and Reeve over provider collapse. And as I often say on the site, good regulatory design considers how individuals come to understand (or access information) on their rights should they need to use them without having to access a regulator or complaints adjudicator – there’s nothing on any of that here.

    But the third is the lack of a clear link to the regulatory framework, and the lack of any enforcement carried out over what must amount to failings. If the guidance is grounded in OfS’ rules, students might well say “well what action have you taken given that the problems were widespread?”

    If it’s not grounded in OfS’ powers, providers might well say “well notwithstanding that we like to look nice, why would we magnify the efficacy of an industrial action tactic if we don’t really have to”.

    It’s all very well for OfS to be “give them guidance” mode, but over this set of issues the financial impacts of compliance with something that sounds contested, and partly voluntary, could be huge both in an individual dispute and in the long-term. That all (still) needs bringing to a head.

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  • Adolescence and Boys will be Boys – time for concrete action

    Adolescence and Boys will be Boys – time for concrete action

    Having been involved in the world of men and boys’ issues (chairing charities, running campaigns, trying to get policy change) for a long time, the last few weeks have been potentially game-changing. We saw the Centre for Social Justice report Lost Boys, Netflix’s Adolescence and the Boys will be boys policy report from Nick Hillman and me for this Institute.

    I felt that the Netflix programme raised serious issues facing some, not all, of our teenage boys, albeit it felt a little tick boxy in places (Tate – tick, Incels – tick, dad not around all the time – tick). I felt a little uneasy about how the dad was portrayed (leaving home at 6am and coming home at 8pm as if it was his fault and it was all his choice). Being the eldest son of a van driver, I am somewhat sensitive to negative portrayals of working-class dads doing the best they can to keep the lights on for their families.

    The report Nick and I wrote highlighted the continuing gender gap between male and female teenagers going into higher education. We estimate it is half a million over a decade with no sign of any change on the horizon, given the main predictor is an attainment gap in school. Boys remain behind girls at every level. Therefore, they are not getting the grades and as a consequence, are not taking enough of the exams to qualify.

    The main commonalities between both are that these issues have been hidden in plain sight. The issues raised by Adolescence about disengaged boys, negative influencers and their impact have been known for a long time. The same is true of the gender attainment gap. It shouldn’t, like last years’ Post Office Scandal drama, take TV to bring these to the fore.

    The main difference between our report and the ensuing debate about Adolescence is what comes next.

    We offered a range of policy solutions from schools taking up boy-positive principles to more male teachers and role models. Plus, there should be an increased focus on gender disparities in Access and Participation Plans, a Minister for Men and Boys and re-opening the Select Committee inquiry on boys’ attainment. Many more as well.

    What has been missing with regard to Adolescence at a national political and education level is the lack of commitment for concrete action. More male teachers and role models, came the welcome call from Sir Gareth Southgate. But there was no commitment from anyone to act. The Prime Minister said he was concerned and would look at it, but he made no pledge on action or what that would look like. There was also no huge push on tackling the problems boys have, only talking about the problems boys cause. But of course, tackling the problems boys have reduces the problems some boys cause – to themselves and others, including women and girls.

    My fear is that the media and political agenda will move on as it always does and nothing will change. The higher education attendance gap will remain, 150 plus teenage boys will die by suicide every year, well over 6,000 boys will continue to be excluded from school and 250,000 young men will still be unemployed.

    The higher education sector needs more boys to do well, so more go to higher education, and they do better when they are there. Our economy and society depend on it, too. The lesson from both Adolescence and Boys will be boys is that a continual lack of concrete action will no longer do.

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  • Collaboration in Action: The Third Sector Forum and the OfS Equality Agenda

    Collaboration in Action: The Third Sector Forum and the OfS Equality Agenda

    Last month, the Office for Students (OfS) confirmed the successful bids for their £2 million Equality of Opportunity Innovation Fund, launched to ‘support institutions to undertake new and innovative collaborative work or projects that will reduce risks to equality of opportunity’. 

    It is the culmination of three years of collaboration, beginning in February 2022 when Impetus hosted John Blake in his first external speaking event as the OfS’s Director for Fair Access and Participation.

    This seminal event gave rise to the Third Sector Forum – a quarterly dialogue between the Office for Students and third sector organisations working to support young people into higher education.   

    As an impact funder supporting the best attainment, engagement, and employment interventions for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, we recognise the invaluable role of the third sector in addressing deep-seated barriers. We wanted to support this knowledge-sharing in the widening participation space.  

    Three years on, I spoke to some of the CEOs of Third Sector Forum organisations on what’s made the forum a success.

    Trust and openness  

    I was struck by the number of CEOs who cited the forum’s format as key to its success. While we fund widening participation organisations, Impetus itself is not a direct delivery organisation, meaning we can provide an independent middle ground. As a result, many emphasised the forum’s open and trusting nature and the uniqueness of this set-up. Anna Searle, CEO of The Access Project, reflected on how ‘you don’t often have the [governmental regulatory body] being as open with their constituent group’.  

    Another key factor in the success of the forum was the genuine engagement from the Office for Students, and particularly John Blake. Jayne Taylor, CEO of The Elephant Group, emphasised how John ‘genuinely listens to the voices around the table’, while Anna was quick to note how he went beyond discussing challenges for the OfS and what was next and provided his genuine views and reflections.  

    Collaborating and knowledge sharing

    Sam Holmes, CEO of Causeway Education, mentioned how participating in the sessions enabled him to form partnerships with other organisations in the space. Sitting next to Jayne when the Innovation Fund was announced, he says they were ‘immediately having conversations about […] potential collaboration’. 

    For organisations such as Causeway, which occupy a different space to programmatic organisations, it was also valuable to hear from colleagues across the sector. Forum members were able to share updates which, for Sam, demonstrated the wealth of collective knowledge and painted a picture of the higher education landscape.

    Shifting the narrative

    Action Tutoring is another member of the forum who wouldn’t ordinarily describe itself as a widening participation organisation. Susannah Hardyman, then-CEO, initially wondered if it was the right place for Action Tutoring, whose tutoring stops at age 16.  Organisations focusing on Level 2 outcomes have not always been seen as part of the widening participation space, but John Blake’s conscious decision to widen the focus of the equality of opportunity agenda brought them within scope. Over time, Susannah began to feel Action Tutoring had a place, helping to shift the narrative of what ‘widening participation’ means.

    At Impetus, we know that each step up the qualification ladder halves your chances of being NEET. We also know that early intervention is critical – before the barriers that young people face become acute – making the case for the importance of Level 2 pathways in achieving equality of opportunity. For Susannah, both the dialogue and John Blake’s emphasis on GCSE attainment, ‘[genuinely] did change the narrative of how we understand widening participation’. The implications of this reverberated beyond the four walls of the forum, opening up opportunities for organisations like Action Tutoring, which was later funded by the University of Brighton to work with two secondary schools on GCSE attainment.

    What next? 

    Policy professionals will know how rare it is to attribute policy change to their work. So, while Third Sector Forum members should undoubtedly shout about the fact that their expertise and dedication have helped to bring about £2 million of funding and a change to regulatory guidance, the work doesn’t end there. 

    Last year, the widening participation gap grew to 20.8 percentage points – its highest recorded level. The number is staggering, and even more bleak when coupled with a higher education sector on its knees and a ‘fiscal blackhole’ with seemingly no money to plug it up. It is clear that fighting to achieve equality of opportunity is more important than ever, but how?

    That a key pillar of the updated regulatory guidance is collaboration with the third sector is a testament to the success of the forum, but we can and must go further. 

    For Jayne Taylor, this looks like working groups or direct-action areas to facilitate collaboration, leveraging the collective knowledge and resources of the sector. With further investment, the forum could even evolve into an ecosystem, with opportunities for publishing research, bidding and running events together. 

    Collaboration also looks like an ever-evolving partnership between third sector organisations and the regulator. Anna Searle suggested implementing mechanisms for feedback loops, such as regular newsletters, to continue to foster a transmission of knowledge between forum members and the Office for Students. 

    For some, it feels like public policy is waiting for a return to pre-pandemic conditions. They believe that to truly move forward, we need to adapt to the present socio-economic landscape. One CEO pointed out the need for realistic conversations about the economic realities of the sector. With 40% of higher education institutions thought to be in deficit in 2023/24, providers and organisations are operating in an unprecedented funding landscape. For Sam Holmes, clearer messaging for charities that have relied on university contracts is increasingly necessary. He suggests there may even be benefits to involving funders in these discussions, alongside considering alternative partnerships, funding models and strategies.

    For others, such as Susannah Hardyman, we must continue to reevaluate our understanding of ‘equality of opportunity’.  With a record 56% of students now working part-time while studying, foodbank usage doubling since 2022, and 60% stating that money concerns affected their university choice, the landscape has undoubtedly changed. Where two decades ago the focus was relatively narrow – focused mostly around supporting high-achievers from deprived areas into high tariff institutions – this understanding has moved on. For Susannah, this needs to be taken into account, not to quash ambition but to broaden the definition of opportunity to reach as wide a group as possible. 

    When we hosted the Director for Fair Access and Participation three years ago, he said,

    ‘We are not short on people who will give up days, weeks, years of their time to pour into projects supporting the vulnerable and disadvantaged. We are not short on good suggestions, possible solutions, and rough ideas how things could be better. No, what we lack, still, is enough commitment for all those dedicated people to work together…’ 

    While the past few years have demonstrated the commitment that may have been missing previously, if we are to give every young person equal opportunity to succeed, our work is far from over. 

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  • Turning Insight Into Action: The 2025 RNL National Alumni Survey

    Turning Insight Into Action: The 2025 RNL National Alumni Survey

    51,000 alumni weigh in on giving priorities, engagement preferences, and more.

    This blog features an excerpt from Howard Heevner, fundraising industry leader and co-author of the
    2025 RNL National Alumni Survey.

    RNL’s 2025 National Alumni Survey was just released and, while the insights gleaned from this report are always valuable, one could argue that this data is worth its weight in gold during times of extreme uncertainty like we are currently facing in our sector. After all, there are a few universal truths that strategic fundraisers understand, regardless of differing priorities, levels of experience, or overall philosophy:

    • “Hope”‘” is not a strategy.
    • Stewardship matters.
    • You will never regret confirming your flight departure time ahead of an important donor visit…
    • When in doubt, go straight to the source: your donors.

    RNL’s National Alumni Survey gives fundraisers a valuable opportunity to refine their engagement strategies by focusing on what truly matters—understanding donor expectations. By analyzing responses from more than 51,000 alumni across generations and institutions of all types, this report sheds light on alumni sentiments toward their alma maters, their giving priorities, generational volunteer trends, and the motivations behind their contributions of time, talent, and financial support.

    Facilitated by RNL’s Sarah Kleeberger, this report also benefits from the expertise of longtime RNL partner and industry leader Howard Heevner. Howard provides both a foreword and conclusion to the report, offering insightful commentary, practical applications, and a forward-looking perspective on the future of donor engagement.

    Excerpt from the 2025 RNL National Alumni Survey Report,
    written by Howard Heevner:

    Howard Heevner
    Howard Heevner

    As part of RNL’s second annual research study, we are again sharing the collective wisdom of 51,000 alumni representing a broad spectrum of higher education. The opportunity to provide a conduit for these voices to be heard is an honor, and along with the team at RNL, we are excited to share the feedback alumni from 21 institutions.

    In higher education, we often spend our time looking inward or looking at other institutions instead of turning to those we wish to connect, engage, and inspire to be in a closer relationship with our institutions. For decades, we have been able to rely on an expectation of loyalty from our alumni because that’s how it’s always been. However, so many factors have changed the nature of that relationship and those expectations. Among them are the rising costs of education, the implied and often explicit promise that degree achievement will provide you with a pass to greater opportunity, and the increasing mistrust of institutions and higher education.

    There is a growing concern for our pipeline of donors. We have seen a dramatic decrease in alumni donor counts across the United States over the past three decades. These trends pre-date the pandemic but seem to be exacerbated post-pandemic. Many schools are struggling to acquire new donors and are searching for new methodologies to do so. However, it seems most often we are taking the fractured giving structures that brought us here and bringing those into these new strategies. Maybe the issue isn’t our tools or strategies, but our ability to authentically connect with our alumni.

    Ready to dive into the data yourself?

    Download your copy of the 2025 National Alumni Survey, featuring eight key findings about alumni giving and connection taken from more than 50,000 alumni, as well as additional insights from Howard.

    2025 National Alumni Survey: What can you learn from 50,000 alumni?2025 National Alumni Survey: What can you learn from 50,000 alumni?

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  • Join Us on April 17, 2025 to Fight For Higher Education (Coalition for Action in Higher Education)

    Join Us on April 17, 2025 to Fight For Higher Education (Coalition for Action in Higher Education)

    As campus workers and citizens, educators and researchers, staff, students, and university community members, we exercise a powerful collective voice in advancing the democratic mission of our colleges and universities. It is our labor and our ideas which sustain higher education as a project that preserves and extends social equality and the common good—as a project of social emancipation.

    On
    April 17, 2025, we will hold a one-day action on and around our
    campuses to renew this vision of higher education as an autonomous
    public good, and university workers as its most important resource.   

    Free Higher Ed Now! will
    demand FIRST that public higher education in the U.S. be fully funded,
    politically independent, and FREE to all students and SECOND that higher
    ed be FREE of political interference that reduces the rights and
    autonomy of campus workers and students to teach, study, learn, speak,
    organize, and dissent. Read and endorse our agenda here. 

     

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  • Will the UK’s AI Action Plan Force Universities into a U-turn?

    Will the UK’s AI Action Plan Force Universities into a U-turn?

    The AI Opportunities Action Plan, led by Matt Clifford CBE and announced in January, documents recommendations for the government to grow the UK’s AI sector to ‘position the UK to be an AI maker, not an AI taker’ in the field and help achieve economic growth.

    The UK’s AI Action Plan highlights the critical need to harness international talent and expand the workforce with AI expertise. However, this ambition is at odds with recent moves by the British government to limit international student numbers through stricter visa regulations, leading universities to make difficult decisions—cutting courses, slashing budgets, and exploring alternative strategies to maintain financial stability and global relevance.

    The AI Action Plan: A policy contradiction

    Despite a well-documented skills gap in the UK’s AI sector, the Government’s actions have forced universities to pivot toward establishing global campuses in a bid to preserve financial stability and maintain and promote international collaboration in general. This trend is exemplified by universities like Coventry University, which opened a campus in Delhi last year, and the University of Lancaster’s partnership with Deakin University in Indonesia. Today, UK universities operate 38 campuses across 18 countries, educating more than 67,750 students abroad.

    While these international campuses help extend the UK’s academic reach, the UK’s immigration policies are creating significant barriers to attracting top-tier AI talent to work domestically. Many international graduates, trained to UK standards, are struggling to secure postgraduate visas for themselves and their families, preventing them from contributing their skills to the UK economy.

    Visa barriers for graduates

    One of the main visa routes intended to help international talent integrate into the UK workforce is the High Potential Individual (HPI) visa. The HPI visa is a UK immigration pathway designed for recent graduates from 40 top global universities, allowing them to live and work in the UK for several years. However, this scheme remains restrictive. To qualify, applicants must have a qualification from one of the eligible global universities in the last five years. Of the universities included, 47.62% are from the US, and there is just one institution from the entire southern hemisphere on the list.

    The AI action plan recommended the government consider reforming the HPI pathway with ‘graduates from some leading AI institutions, such as the Indian Institutes of Technology and (since 2020) Carnegie Mellon University in the US, are not currently included in the High Potential Individual visa eligibility list’.

    The AI Action Plan itself highlights the need for a rethink of the UK’s immigration system to attract graduates from top AI institutions worldwide. However, the government has only ‘partially agreed‘ with this recommendation, pointing to existing visa schemes that they believe meet the needs of skilled workers, including AI graduates. However, it can be argued that the UK visa process is often expensive, and Global Talent Visas require employer sponsorship while failing to account for the challenges that international graduates face when trying to secure long-term employment, especially in industries with rapidly evolving skills like AI. Even if the HPI eligibility list was expanded, our existing visa pathways are too restrictive to support a rapid influx of skilled graduates.

    Government and university collaboration

    The AI Action Plan calls on the government to ‘support Higher Education institutions in increasing the number of AI graduates and teaching industry-relevant skills.’ The reality is that many UK universities have already adjusted their strategies to cope with both domestic financial pressures and the measures introduced to quell international students through restricted immigration pathways.

    The question remains whether universities will be expected to reverse course, intensify efforts to recruit domestically and retain AI talent to meet the government’s urgent targets. Without a targeted and affordable visa system to support these efforts, the AI Action Plan’s goals risk falling short of their potential.

    This is not about asking Universities to ensure that their international students have clear career pathways post-graduation or providing AI-specific courses. The government must create an AI-specific visa that allows graduates from top global institutions to work in the UK.

    The real need lies in fostering closer collaboration between higher education institutions and government policymakers, particularly when it comes to visas. The government must take responsibility for creating a new visa pathway if it wants to meet the aims of the AI action plan.  Universities cannot be expected to U-turn- develop new courses in the face of financial constraints and restrictive visa policies.

    Mauve Group is a global HR, Employer of Record and business consultancy provider. Mauve specialises in supporting organisations of all sizes to expand overseas, helping companies navigate the complexities of employing workers across borders. 

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  • To accelerate action on gender equality, we must consider both sides of the coin. #IWD2025

    To accelerate action on gender equality, we must consider both sides of the coin. #IWD2025

    It’s International Women’s Day. Today on the site, Professor Lisa-Dionne Morris explores the critical role of Black women in academia and industry leadership, particularly in Engineering and STEM, highlighting their groundbreaking contributions and the systemic barriers that persist. Read that piece here.

    Below, HEPI’s own Rose Stephenson challenges us to look at ‘the other side of the coin’ in the fight for gender equality – you can read that piece below.

    Firstly, Happy International Women’s Day 2025.

    The theme this year is ‘Accelerate Action.’ It’s a great theme, and to accelerate action in terms of gender equality, we have got to focus more on ‘the other side of the coin’. Let me explain three examples:

    1. We should do more to ensure that parenting is supportive and inclusive of fathers.

    Joeli Brearly, outgoing CEO of Pregnant then Screwed, recently gave evidence on Shared Parental Leave in parliament. She stated:

    ‘It’s time we asked ourselves a fundamental question about what sort of society we want this to be. Do we want to continue to perpetuate outdated and harmful gender stereotypes that tell us it is women who do the nurturing and the caring and the childrearing and are the homemakers and that men just need to pull their socks up and get back to work? They are strong, stoic breadwinners and don’t need this time [parental leave] to nurture and care for their family. The mental health of men in this country is in crisis. Boys are saying they feel lost and disconnected, and it’s no wonder when our laws are literally telling them: “you don’t need time to nurture and connect with your family.”’

    Inclusive parenting is good for dads, it’s great for kids, and it benefits Mums, too. My mantra is, ‘We will never have equality in the workplace until we have equality in the home’. Until we reach a point where an equal number of dads leave work in time for the school run, take time off for holiday care, or work part-time and flexibly, we will never reach parity in the workplace. And why would we want to? If women collectively reach equal pay, equal status and the resulting equal responsibility at work yet continue to shoulder most domestic and childcare duties, we have significantly undermined progress towards equality.

    The HEPI report I published last year, Show Me the Money, an exploration of the gender pay gap in higher education, demonstrated the importance of increasing paid paternity leave as a lever for narrowing the gender pay gap. If your institution is monitoring the uptake of senior or professorial roles by gender, are they also monitoring the uptake of post-birth parental leave, shared parental leave and statutory parental leave by the same measure? Is there monitoring and reporting on the genderisation of part-time work applications, flexible working requests and the granting of these requests? That is ‘the other side of the coin’ and we should not underestimate the hurdles fathers may have to overcome to ask – or be granted – the flexibility we more commonly expect for mothers.

    2. We should encourage boys and young men to work in teaching and social care roles to the same extent that we encourage women to work in engineering and tech.

    When working as a secondary and sixth-form science teacher, I undertook a project at my school that challenged pupils to critically think about the subject choices they were making at GCSE and A-Level and how this might be affected by gender stereotyping. There was plenty of support and encouragement for female pupils in science and maths subjects (as there should be). However, there was a notable vacuum in the equivalent campaigns to open up opportunities for boys.

    I witnessed first-hand how the gendering of subjects and occupations suppressed the potential of young men. One boy in my tutor group desperately wanted to complete his work experience at a hair salon. This pupil would have benefitted from a ‘hook’ that could have driven his interest in education and the future world of work. Unfortunately, his family disapproved of his choice, and he spent his work experience on a building site. This did nothing to enhance his motivation towards education or work. This was a valuable opportunity for a disengaged young man to pursue something that genuinely sparked his interest, and I have no doubt he would have excelled at. However, this opportunity was lost because it was not deemed ‘masculine’ enough. This was one example, but the boys I taught were quite open about feeling they couldn’t choose the subjects they wanted. There was an element of ‘acceptable’ choices.

    It is tragic that in 2025, UK society is still limiting the possibilities for young men to follow their real interests. As a sector, we should push hard against the narratives perpetuating this. Again, if your institution is monitoring and encouraging the uptake of subjects such as engineering or coding for female students, are they also monitoring the update of nursing courses by male students? Are there considerations of male uptake and completion of courses in your Access and Participation Plans?

    3. We should consider developing ‘Men’s Leadership’ courses.

    I’ve been lucky enough to partake in various forms of ‘Women’s Leadership training’ run by Advance HE and the Women’s Higher Education Network (WHEN), among others. Of course, non-gender-specific leadership training is available. However, women’s leadership courses have existed due to the historic and ongoing underrepresentation of women in leadership positions. Further, they provide a female-only space for women to develop their leadership skills.

    I vividly remember being told by a presenter on the Advance HE Aurora programme to ‘have heft’ and ‘take up space’. (I replay this memory regularly in all the privileged but occasionally intimidating speaking and media events I undertake in my current role.)

    But as we move closer towards gender parity – and I know there is more work to do – should we be thinking about the other side of the coin? Women’s leadership courses can often focus on developing traits deemed to be held by traditional, therefore male, leaders. Having more confidence, making your voice heard, etc. Now that most of society accepts that women can also make great leaders – and there are many stand-out examples in the higher education sector – where is the equivalent training for men?

    Where are the male leadership courses that teach men the skills of making space for others, speaking inclusively, building relationships, the importance of being a mentor, and using coaching techniques to build confidence in their colleagues? Surely, some male colleagues who wish to become leaders can learn skills that may be (stereotypically) more prevalent in female colleagues, and developing these skills would benefit everyone.

    And sure, some men will already possess these skills, just like some women have a natural ability to take up space. My question is, if we accept that women are socialised in a particular way to be missing some leadership or workplace skills, then can we accept that for men? Do we value stereotypically ‘female’ leadership skills enough to offer a platform for developing these skills in male colleagues? Further, should leadership courses for men include panels discussing how to balance leadership roles with childcare responsibilities? (And yes, those panels exist in women-in-leadership courses) Perhaps when we get to this point, we really will be considering the other side of the coin.

    If you found this blog interesting, you may wish to look back at some of our previous International Women’s Day blogs:

    HEPI has also published the report:

    HEPI will soon publish an updated report on educational achievement by boys and young men, a significant and long-standing issue that has been largely ignored by policymakers. The report considers the consequences for individuals and societies and proposes several levers that could be used to drive change. This report will be published this month – March 2025. If you haven’t already, sign up for our blog below to get this report hot off the press.

    If you wish to write a blog for International Men’s Day on November 19th, submissions are very welcome.

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  • SFFA president on affirmative action ban’s growing impact

    SFFA president on affirmative action ban’s growing impact

    Edward Blum isn’t quite a household name. But at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., he’s a minor celebrity.

    The conservative think tank has played host to an array of high-profile politicos, pundits, journalists and businesspeople over the years: Bill Gates, Mike Pence, Jordan Peterson, the Dalai Lama. Blum, who took affirmative action to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 and won, spoke at the institute earlier this month about his decades of legal activism.

    It was something of a homecoming for the president of Students for Fair Admissions, who lives in Florida but has been a visiting fellow at AEI since 2005. It was also, in many ways, a victory lap.

    Since the court ruled in his favor in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and the University of North Carolina, Blum’s vision of what he calls a “colorblind covenant in public policy” has been ascendant, and in the new Trump administration, Blum’s zealous opposition to race-conscious programs has become a domineering force driving education policy.

    Over the weekend, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights issued a letter outlining an expansive interpretation of the SFFA ruling and its plans to enforce a ban on all race-conscious programming in higher ed; colleges that don’t comply in 14 days could lose their federal funding. During her confirmation hearing Thursday, Education Secretary nominee Linda McMahon said ending “race-based programming” would be a priority if she were confirmed.

    Blum, who spoke with Inside Higher Ed before the OCR letter was published, believes that affirmative action has long been unpopular—winning the public relations battle, he said, was “the easiest part of my job.” Still, he said the political, legal and cultural backlash against affirmative action and DEI over the past few years was affirming. In Trump’s Washington, Blum, who fought the courts unsuccessfully for decades, feels like an insider at last.

    “It’s gratifying for those of us who have labored in this movement to see that now, rather than these policies being whispered about as unfair and illegal, there’s a full-throated cry against them,” he said.

    The Trump administration’s adoption of Blum’s views on race in higher ed has also prompted another wave of backlash from Blum’s many critics, who say his work is undoing decades of progress toward racial equality and integration.

    During his AEI session, Blum was asked about his own views on racial diversity on college campuses, constitutional law notwithstanding. He rejected the premise outright.

    “The question implies that someone’s skin color is going to tell me something very fundamental about who they are as an individual. I don’t believe that’s the case,” Blum said. “Your skin color, the shape of your eyes, the texture of your hair tells me nothing about who you are. For some people, being on a campus with racial diversity is important … There are others that don’t seem to care about that.”

    From Outsider to Agenda Setter

    Blum has railed against race-conscious admissions for two decades. A former businessman in Houston, Blum, who has no law degree, founded the legal defense fund Project on Fair Representation in the mid-2000s. He challenged Texas’s reinstatement of race-based admissions in the second Fisher v. the University of Texas case; the case went to the Supreme Court but was ultimately defeated in 2016 when justices ruled that the university’s admission practices were constitutional.

    Now, he’s not alone. A corps of public interest law groups has sprung up to litigate the SFFA decision in higher ed at prestigious law firms, on Wall Street and beyond. This month, a brand-new public interest legal group filed a lawsuit against the University of California system accusing it of secretly using racial preferences in admissions, citing increases in Black and Hispanic enrollment at its most selective colleges.

    Blum said SFFA isn’t passing the buck and is committed to challenging universities on their compliance with the law, but a groundswell of efforts has lightened his load.

    “The SFFA decision has energized the public interest law apparatus,” Blum said. He predicted that under Trump, the Education Department will also play a bigger role in investigating institutions for their compliance with the affirmative action ban. That forecast appears to be coming true with Friday’s Dear Colleague letter, though the agency still has to enforce the directive, a complicated prospect considering its broad scope.

    Edward Blum (left) at the American Enterprise Institute on Feb. 5, with moderator Frederick Hess.

    Blum supports the intensifying attacks on DEI and said that with more state laws forbidding spending on diversity and equity programs, there’s room for legal work to ensure colleges aren’t spending on “DEI by another name.”

    But despite the high-profile political implications of his work, he doesn’t see himself as a political actor. In the late 1990s, he ran a failed congressional campaign in Houston, but the thought of running for office now evokes “overwhelming negative emotions.” And he’s careful to draw a line between his legal advocacy work and the anti-DEI crusades of conservative lawmakers.

    “There is a 20-foot wall between the political people in the movement and the public interest groups,” he said.

    ‘A Forever Endeavor’

    Blum is not finished suing colleges over affirmative action, or at least those he believes could be flouting the law. He’s particularly interested in selective colleges that reported similar or higher rates of Black and Hispanic enrollment this year, such as Yale, Duke and Princeton—a sure sign, he believes, that they’ve been “cheating.” SFFA has a “vibrant role to play,” he added, in holding them to account.

    “So many of us are befuddled and concerned that in the first admissions cycle post-SFFA, schools that said getting rid of affirmative action would cause their minority admissions to plummet didn’t see that happen,” he said.

    When asked if recent expansions to financial aid offerings at these universities could account for the change, Blum was circumspect. He’s not opposed to economically progressive admissions initiatives; he calls Rick Kahlenberg, a liberal proponent of “class-based affirmative action,” a like-minded friend. But he said the onus was on colleges to prove that’s the source of their continued racial diversity. He also said that geographic diversity initiatives would be unconstitutional if they only applied to “Harlem and the South Side of Chicago, and not also rural Missouri and northern Maine.”

    Since the Supreme Court ruling, experts, college administrators and lawyers have debated whether the SFFA decision applies to race-conscious scholarships, internships and precollege programs as well as admissions. In the months after the ruling, attorneys general in Ohio and Missouri issued orders saying it did, and some colleges have begun to revise racial eligibility requirements on scholarships. At the same time, scholars and lawyers said implementing changes to nonadmissions programs amounted to overreach from state lawmakers and institutions alike.

    Blum doesn’t actually believe the decision itself extends to those programs. He does think they’re illegal—there just hasn’t been a successful case challenging them yet.

    “I haven’t really made myself clear on this, which is my fault, but the SFFA opinion didn’t change the law for those policies” in internships and scholarships, he said. “But those policies have always been, in my opinion, outside of the scope of our civil rights law and actionable in court.”

    He’s still looking for a case that could enshrine his view in the law—two weeks ago McDonald’s settled a lawsuit he filed against their Latino scholarship program, putting that one out of contention. But he said that for the most part, in the wake of the SFFA decision, colleges have proactively altered or ended those programs themselves.

    “Even if the ruling didn’t apply directly, it’s had this cascading effect,” he said.

    That effect, Blum said, has spread to cultural and corporate institutions as well as higher ed, contributing to a general chilling effect on what he views as unconstitutional racial preferences in American society. It’s a major turnaround, he acknowledged, from the ubiquity of DEI initiatives and racial reckoning just five years ago after the murder of George Floyd.

    While he’s relishing in the legal, political and cultural victory of his crusade, he’s not resting on his laurels.

    “There are no permanent victories in politics,” Blum said, loosely quoting Winston Churchill. “The same applies to legal advocacy. This is a forever endeavor.”

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