Tag: Education

Why the LLE may not radically reform tertiary education — and how it might still move the dial

Picture two people you probably know. Amira works in a GP surgery and wants to move into health data. Ben’s a video editor who keeps bumping into AI tools he doesn’t quite understand.

The Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) looks built for them: pay per credit, learn in chunks, fit study around life. It’s a real step forward. But a finance switch rarely rewires a whole system. Who recognises learning, who lets you progress, and who supports you while you study still decide who actually gets through the door.

In simple terms, the LLE funds learning at levels 4–6 (from Higher Nationals up to bachelor’s) and lets people use an entitlement over time (currently up to age 60). Providers are paid per credit. Early emphasis is on areas with clear employer demand (for example computing, engineering, health) and on Higher Technical Qualifications. Funded modules typically need to be at least 30 credits, assessed, and housed inside an approved “parent course”. Subjects are tagged using a national list (HECoS), and modules are expected to align with the parent course’s main subject tag – a guard-rail that ties funding to real, quality-assured programmes.

Money fix won’t deliver system fix

Being able to pay isn’t the same as being able to progress. One university ultimately decides whether learning you did elsewhere counts towards its award, and practice varies. Modularity also isn’t cost-free: even short units need admissions checks, timetables, advice and assessment, so institutions may scale cautiously or stick to subjects with clear prerequisites. And performance metrics were built for whole degrees, not “step-on, step-off” study, so departments worry about being penalised when learners pause between modules.

At the most selective end of the system, mid-course entry and external credit are rare. That’s not special pleading; it reflects how recognition works in England: one university confers the degree and decides what counts. The LLE can pay for learning in many places; it doesn’t compel acceptance.

Colleges and universities can make progress quickly by acting as one system: align first-year expectations so college students aren’t starting cold; recognise T Levels and Higher Technical Qualifications clearly in admissions; share transition data so support follows the learner; co-deliver study-skills content; and publish simple maps showing which level-4 modules count towards which degrees. Otherwise, too many learners hit the boundary and bounce off it (see this practical bridging agenda from Imran Mir at Apex College Leicester).

In countries where adult study is normal, systems don’t just fix tuition; they also help with the time cost of learning and make credit transfer routine. The pattern is tuition + time + transfer solved together. England’s LLE chiefly tackles tuition; the other two levers still need work.

The wider growth story is that systems that reach more adult learners tend to do three things at scale: institution-wide digital delivery (not a side-project), employer-linked curricula and experiential learning, and a clear identity around inclusion and student success. The LLE can be the catalyst, but only if leaders build for lifelong learners across the whole institution rather than at the edges, with enterprise-level innovation in online and hybrid learning, partnerships, brand reach, and transfer-friendly design.

Interdisciplinarity without contortions

A live tension is the HECoS rule: a module’s main subject tag is expected to match its parent course. That keeps data tidy and protects students, but it can blunt genuinely cross-field learning just as employers ask for blended skill-sets (AI plus a domain like health or media; green and digital transitions).

Createch – where creative practice, design, computing, data/AI and business models meet – is a good test case. There are two practical tracks. One is provider-led, inside today’s rules, and would involve setting up interdisciplinary parent programmes (for example, Createch and Digital Production) so the main tag stays compliant, and using secondary or proportional tags to reflect the mix. Institutions would co-deliver paired modules across departments with published progression maps and build employer-validated outcomes so transfer is easier to justify.

A policy-led approach would require government and regulators to clarify guidance on proportional coding and run time-limited pilots allowing defined exceptions to the strict primary-code match where labour-market need is clear (Createch is a strong candidate). After consultation, there could be small, targeted tweaks so specified cross-disciplinary modules can be funded without awkward rebadging.

Options for system development

Portability needs to be easier to plan. A credit-transfer guarantee in a few defined subject areas, backed by shared learning-outcome descriptors and a standard digital transcript, would give learners and providers confidence. Publishing typical acceptance rules – and deciding transfer requests within indicative timeframes – would also help.

Fund time as well as tuition, selectively. A wage-linked maintenance pilot for priority level 4–6 modules, with pro-rata childcare and disability support, could unlock participation for adults who can’t take a pay hit to study.

Commission where demand is obvious. A small national fund could buy short university courses in shortage areas with colleges and local employers.

Build planned pathways. Federated degrees and regional FE–HE compacts can publish simple maps from level 3/4 to degree entry (including any bridging) and show how 30-credit modules stack inside an approved parent course.

Tune the measures. Outcome metrics that recognise pauses between modules would reduce the risk of doing the right thing for modular learners.

Balance selective and inclusive levers. Any growth money might come with contextual admissions and targeted pathways at high-tariff universities, alongside serious student success investment where most low-income learners actually study and, crucially, institution-wide innovation rather than pilots at the margins.

The LLE widens options but on its own it won’t rebalance outcomes. If England wants fair access and attainment, the system can combine portable recognition, realistic support for time out of work, and commissioned provision where need is greatest – and pair it with institution-wide innovation that treats adults as core learners, not extras. That’s how Amira and Ben actually get through the door, and how the sector grows again.

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December 17, 2025
Higher Education Inquirer : Understanding U.S. Campus Safety and Mental Health: Guidance for International Students

The tragic shooting at Brown University in December 2025, which claimed two lives and left nine students wounded, is a stark reminder that even elite U.S. campuses are not immune to violence. For international students, understanding this incident requires placing it in the broader context of the United States’ history of social dangers, treatment of mental illness, and policies affecting foreigners.

The United States has historically had higher rates of violent crime, including gun-related incidents, than many other developed nations. While campus shootings remain statistically rare, they reflect deeper societal issues: widespread gun access, social inequality, and a culture that often prioritizes armed self-protection over preventative public safety measures. Universities, traditionally viewed as open spaces for learning and discussion, are increasingly sites of surveillance and armed response, reshaping the student experience.

Foreign students and immigrants may face additional vulnerabilities. Throughout U.S. history, immigrants have often been subject to discrimination, harassment, or violence based on nationality, race, or religion. Universities are not insulated from these pressures, and international students can be particularly susceptible to microaggressions, exclusion, or even targeted hostility. These risks were heightened under the Trump administration, when rhetoric and policies frequently cast foreigners as suspicious or undesirable. Visa restrictions, heightened scrutiny of foreign scholars, and public statements fostering distrust created an environment in which international students might feel unsafe or isolated.

Mental illness plays a critical role in understanding campus violence, but its treatment in the United States is inconsistent. While many universities provide counseling centers, therapy services, and crisis hotlines, the broader mental health system in the U.S. remains fragmented and under-resourced. Access often depends on insurance coverage, ability to pay, and proximity to care, leaving some individuals untreated or inadequately supported. Cultural stigmas and underdiagnosis can exacerbate the problem, particularly among minority and immigrant populations. International students, unfamiliar with local mental health norms or hesitant to seek care due to cost or cultural barriers, may be less likely to access help until crises arise.

U.S. universities deploy extensive surveillance systems, emergency protocols, and campus police to respond to threats. These measures aim to mitigate harm once an incident occurs but focus less on prevention of violence or addressing underlying causes, including untreated mental illness. Students are required to participate in drills and safety training, creating a reactive rather than preventative model.

Compared to other countries, the U.S. approach is distinct. Canadian universities emphasize mental health support and unarmed security. European campuses often maintain open environments with minimal surveillance and preventive intervention strategies. Many Asian universities operate in low-crime contexts with community-based safety measures rather than extensive surveillance. The U.S. approach emphasizes rapid law enforcement response and monitoring, reflecting a society with higher firearm prevalence and less coordinated mental health infrastructure.

The Brown University tragedy underscores a sobering reality for international students: while the U.S. offers world-class education, it is a nation with elevated risks of violent crime, inconsistent mental health care, and historical and ongoing challenges for foreigners. Awareness, preparedness, community engagement, and proactive mental health support are essential tools for international students navigating higher education in this environment.

Sources

The Guardian: Brown University shooting: police release more videos of person of interest as FBI offers reward

Reuters: Manhunt for Brown University shooter stretches into fourth day

Washington Post: Hunt for Brown University gunman starts anew as tension rises

AP News: Brown University shooting victims identified

People: Brown University shooting victim Kendall Turner

WUSF: Brown University shooting victims update

Wikipedia: 2025 Brown University shooting

Pew Research Center: International Students in the United States

Brookings Institution: Immigrant Vulnerability and Safety in the U.S.

National Alliance on Mental Illness: Mental Health in Higher Education

Journal of American College Health: Mental Health Services Utilization Among College Students

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December 17, 2025
That’s All, Folks? Five points of note about higher education in 2025

Nick Hillman, HEPI’s Director, takes a look at some of the changes affecting higher education in 2025. (These remarks were originally delivered to the Executive Advisory Council of HEPI Partner Ellucian on the evening of 15 December 2025.)

Room at the top

The higher education sector continued to see huge churn in those who oversee it during 2025. In the middle of last year, we had a change of Government; in the middle of this year, we saw a new Chief Executive at UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) when Professor Sir Ian Chapman succeeded Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser, and a new Chair in the Office for Students (OfS), when Professor Edward Peck replaced the interim Chair, Sir David Behan.

Then last month, we heard that John Blake, the Director for Fair Access and Participation, one of the three really big executive jobs at the OfS, had stood down with pretty much immediate effect – with John’s predecessor, Professor Chris Millward, taking back the reins.

And we end the year with the news that the hardest job in the whole of English higher education is soon to fall vacant, as the Chief Executive of the OfS, Susan Lapworth, will stand down at the end of her four-year term in charge. So one thing seems certain: 2026 will see a continuing shift in the OfS’s priorities.

There are other personnel changes I could mention too, such as the incoming CEO of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), Kathleen Fisher, who will take over early in the new year.

It feels like we have had a new broom in other respects too. While our two main Ministers in Whitehall, Baroness Smith (Minister for Skills) and Lord Vallance (Minister for Science), remain in place, their jobs have changed significantly as a result of the reshuffle forced on the Prime Minister when Angela Rayner resigned.

Jacqui Smith is no longer just a Minister in the Department for Education as she was at the beginning of the year; she is now also a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions. Meanwhile, Patrick Vallance is not just a Minister in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology; he is also now a Minister in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

If, like me, you thought it was all a bit of a mess before – with the teaching functions of higher education separated from the research functions of universities at a ministerial, departmental and quango level – it is undeniably even more of a mess now.

And who knows what the 2026 elections in Scotland and Wales will mean for oversight of higher education, not to mention the local elections in England? (Look out for some HEPI output on Wales early in 2026.)

Incoherence?

Perhaps the biggest higher education news in 2025 was the Post-16 Education and Skills white paper. Certainly, Ministers had seemingly spent the previous 12 months and more responding to every tricky higher education and skills question by telling people to wait for this all-important document. Yet when it appeared, many felt it was a bit of a damp squib.

The clue to the problem lies in the Foreword to the white paper, which is signed by three different Secretaries of State: the Rt Hon. Bridget Phillipson MP, Secretary of State for Education; the Rt Hon. Pat McFadden MP, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions; and the Rt Hon. Liz Kendall MP, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. On reading the document, it seemed a bit too obvious who had overseen which bits with some frustrating cracks between the different sections. Together, the ideas seemed to be less than the sum of their parts, as they did not really add up to a truly coherent new plan in the way white papers are meant to.

For example, the white paper urged institutions to change direction, for example by doing less (labelled ‘specialisation’) and also, perhaps contradictorily, collaborating more. But the white paper lacked the clear incentives necessary for institutions to overcome countervailing pressures, such as those that come from market competition, institutions’ own statutory charitable responsibilities, a shortage of resources, a highly unionised workforce and the priorities of league table compilers.

In the cold light of day, the top line of the white paper seemed to be ‘we want you to use your autonomy to do what we want you to do’, but with little in the way of policy levers or new funding to persuade institutions to do something radically different from what they have been doing.

As I noted in one blog before the white paper came out, this is the same challenge that Lionel Robbins wrestled with over 60 years ago, for the Robbins report concluded:

it is not reasonable to expect that the Government, which is the source of finance, should be content with an absence of co-ordination or should be without influence thereon. … where free discussion is not sufficient to elicit the desired result in the desired time, it is still possible, and may often be expedient, to attempt to secure it by special incentives. … in emphasising the claims of academic freedom, we stipulate that they must be consistent with the maintenance of coherence throughout the system as a whole.

It is not only me who sees these sorts of problems with the white paper by the way. For example, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has said:

the proposals do not always add up to a coherent overall strategy. There is insufficient indication of how the different reforms connect, or strategic vision for how key trade-offs in the system will be resolved.

Thinking about this whole issue more parochially, it strikes me that there is an analogy with think-tank land. HEPI is an autonomous independent charity, just as most universities are. If Ministers were suddenly to declare that think tanks should specialise and collaborate, I suspect it would only happen if this were in line with each organisation’s charitable objectives and strategy, if each organisation’s Trustees agreed and if there were sufficient resources to make it feasible. It certainly would not happen just because Ministers say it should.

Resources

Yet to be fair to the Government, they did use the Post-16 white paper to do something important and overdue that the previous Government repeatedly chickened out of doing: raising tuition fees in line with inflation. This will protect the unit-of-resource spent on students to some degree and is aligned with the sector’s lobbying, so the representative bodies and mission groups have generally felt obliged to welcome the news.

But in truth, the extra money is chicken feed because it merely beds in the real terms cuts that have occurred since 2012 and takes no account of rising costs, including those imposed on the sector by the current Government, such as higher National Insurance payments. Any university on the cusp of discussing a breach of convenant with their main lender is unlikely to feel in a much more secure position now than before the tuition fee rises were announced.

And this year, we also had the announcement and then fleshing out of another new cost in England’s new International Student Levy, to be set at a little under £1,000 per student. When this was first announced, many people I know seemed to think it was such a mad idea it could never be implemented. But never underestimate the disdain for universities among some policymakers, especially when they are under pressure from a resurgent populist right. While it continues to seem mad to most of us that we would voluntarily self-impose a big new tariff on one of the most successful export sectors of our whole economy, it does tell us something about current political realities and also reminds us we live in a world of ever higher borders in which global conflict sadly no longer looks so unlikely.

When it comes to the other big resource issue of student living costs and maintenance support, 2025 saw no change to the way that we deal with rising living costs among students, with the only clear commitment to continued increases in line with forecast inflation, which tends to run far behind real inflation and is anyway a continuation of the status quo dressed up as something new.

Our research from August of this year suggests students need around £20k a year, twice as much as the standard maximum maintenance loan, to take part fully in university life. Our numbers are used by the Foreign Office for international scholars but not (yet) by the Department for Education for home students. So no wonder, as the HEPI / Advance HE 2025 Student Academic Experience Survey as well as our more recent work with a diverse group of four universities led by the University of Lancashire shows, two-thirds of today’s undergraduates now take part in paid employment during term time.

Personally, I would like to see a modern version of the Anderson Committee, which sat from 1958 until 1960 and which considered student living costs in detail, leading to the first set of national rules on maintenance support. However, we should not kid ourselves on the likelihood of this happening: the same arguments that are used against increases to the benefits bill will likely continue to be used against changes to students’ maintenance costs at a time when there is such a big deficit and when we are spending so much on debt interest as a country.

In the absence of better maintenance and at a time of rising unemployment, my best guess is people will still choose to go to higher education but may look for cheaper ways to live as a student, such as living at home. It had been said that, ‘You can see the commuter student everywhere—except in the student data‘ but it now appears as if the data might be catching up too. Last week, UCAS noted:

31% of UK 18-year-old accepted applicants indicated in their UCAS application that they intended to live at home this year – a record high and a slight increase on 30% in 2024. This compares to 22% a decade ago, with the number of young people planning to live at home climbing steadily since 2016.

Young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are also more likely to live at home. In total, 52% of UK 18-year-olds in IMD Quintile 1 indicated they planned to live at home compared to 17.9% of UK 18-year-olds in IMD Quintile 5. By nation, this means IMD Quintile 1 in England are 3.5 times more likely to live at home, SIMD Quintile 1 in Scotland are 1.7 times more likely and WIMD Quintile 1 in Wales 2.3 times more likely. There is no difference between NIMDM Quintiles 1 and 5 in Northern Ireland.

The pipeline

Another big event in higher education in 2025 was Keir Starmer’s ‘bold new target’, made at the Labour Party Conference, to get ‘two-thirds of young people participating in higher-level learning – academic, technical or apprenticeships – by age 25’.

Personally, I welcome this, though it is important to note it is not actually that ambitious but rather a continuation of the direction of travel of the last few decades. Oddly, the new target was dressed up as an attack on Blair’s 50% target, long since surpassed. Either we have to wonder whether the Government’s heart is really in it or, more likely, whether they thought they were performing some clever-clever political trick in announcing a progressive target in a regressive way.

Either way, to hit the target we need to make further strides in widening participation. And one disappointment this year was a continuing failure to grip the educational underperformance of boys, a long-term interest of HEPI and the theme of a report we published in March of this year.

When Ministers want positive headlines in right-of-centre media, they tend to speak out about the educational underachievements of white working-class boys, including in August of this year during exam results season. So I was presumably not the only person to be disappointed that October’s Post-16 white paper or November’s Government-commissioned Curriculum and Assessment Review and associated Government response did not include clear measures aimed at addressing the issue.

Sadly, this fight needs to go on – and that is one reason why, last week, we published a blog by the author of some vitally important new research from the Netherlands proving the achievement gap between boys and girls is ‘larger in favour of girls in countries where women are more strongly overrepresented among secondary-school teachers’.

Technology

Given my audience, I touch upon my fifth and final topic of technology, including AI, a little trepidatiously. But I do not want to leave it out because the appetite for discussing it is huge: HEPI has been going nearly 25 years and our most well-read piece of output ever is the 2025 wave of our annual survey on students’ use of generative AI, which came out in February of this year. Similarly, our most well-read full-length HEPI Report of 2025 was our collection with the University of Southampton on AI and the Future of Universities, which looked at how AI could change everything from strategic planning, through teaching, to university research.

So the march of AI continues at pace, but it still feels as if no one has fully worked out what it all means yet, including for education. Alongside all those hits on our AI work, for me 2025 will also partly be remembered for some pretty embarrassing AI cock ups, including:

One of the more interesting books I read this year, and one which I reviewed for the HEPI website, was More Than Words: How to Think about Writing in the Age of AI by John Warner.

In this book, the author upends one traditional approach to AI by arguing that it is wrong for students to think generative AI is good for creating an initial draft. Instead, he argues the first draft is the most important draft ‘as it establishes the intention behind the expression.’ In other words, just as we might expect a musician to use technology to hone a song they have written; we would probably approach a song that was entirely created by AI from the ground up with a little more scepticism about its originality or authenticity.

You may or may not think I am right about this but you can come to your own judgement later this week when our last publication of the year (and one of the biggest we have ever done) appears. This gathers together 30 of my book reviews about higher education that have appeared on the HEPI website and other outlets over the past 13[ years, since 2012/13 when those higher tuition fees first began. After all, our goal as a think tank is to make people think; it is not to tell people what to think. So do look out for this new publication on Thursday.

Finally, let me end by thanking everyone who has supported our work in whatever way in 2025 and wishing all our readers the very best for the Christmas and New Year break.

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December 16, 2025
Career Guidance Falls Short for California College Students

About 40 percent of students participate in work-based learning, but access to such programs is not equitable.

Phynart Studio/Getty Images

A new report found that only one in five California college students were fully satisfied with the career guidance they received, with many saying the help often arrived too late.

The data, released by California Competes, comes as more than 80 percent of first-year college students say obtaining a better job is a very important reason they enrolled in college.

“There’s a real opportunity for higher ed to do better because students want more and there’s a lot of room for improvement,” said Su Jin Jez, chief executive officer of California Competes, a nonpartisan organization focused on research and policy to improve the state’s higher education and workforce development.

“It’s really critical, particularly as more first generation students, more low income students, and more students of color are going to college,” Jez said. “These students are more likely to not have professional networks in their homes and in their families, so they really need guidance from higher ed.”

The research, conducted in collaboration with the College Futures Foundation and Strada Education Foundation, analyzed data from more than 5,000 California college students and recent graduates who responded to the 2023 Strada-College Pulse survey, which examined employment outcomes, student access to quality coaching and work-based learning, and the alignment between postsecondary education and state job requirements.

By examining students’ experiences with career guidance and work-based learning, as well as their early career outcomes, the report found that many lack sufficient preparation for meaningful employment.

The research identified opportunities to strengthen college-to-career pathways and boost economic mobility.

Career Pathways Guidance

About 60 percent of students reported receiving some form of career guidance, and 50 percent said they received information about potential earnings in careers related to their academic programs before the end of their first year.

But only 20 percent reported feeling very satisfied with the career guidance they received.

When asked where they got their career advice, 66 percent said they received it from college faculty and staff, followed by 59 percent who said they relied on family and friends.

“Higher ed makes a lot of sense to be the ones to provide career guidance because they know better than other entities what skills students are learning,” Jez said. “They can help them connect to employers, particularly alumni networks, which are really powerful connectors.”

Work-Based Learning

About 40 percent of near-graduates participated in work-based learning, with internships being the most common type.

The report found that internship participation was associated with better early career outcomes for students, greater satisfaction with their education, and a stronger sense of return on their investment, compared with those who did not intern.

But access to work-based learning remains inequitable, with 50 percent reporting that course loads were too heavy and 48 percent saying they were uncertain about how to find opportunities.

“Colleges should integrate work-based learning into their programs of study, into majors, so that it becomes a real pathway and not just a privilege,” Jez said.

“It makes their heavy course load issue not as critical,” Jez said. “And then, similarly, it takes the burden off of students to find the internship because the university will have already identified the internships that make sense for the students based on their major.”

Jez cited Compton College, El Camino College, and West Los Angeles College as good examples of institutions that place work-based learning at the center of their programs.

“They approach employers and think together about where a work-based learning opportunity fits well into their programs because it’s not something that has to be unique to every campus,” Jez said, adding that colleges collaborating on such efforts helps streamline the process for employers who are often approached by multiple institutions.

“Huge kudos to them for tackling this work that’s hard on your own, but even more challenging to do collaboratively,” Jez said.

Early Career Outcomes

The report also found that less than half of recent graduates are highly satisfied with their first job or their career progress.

“This is not a new issue, but I do think that just because it’s not new doesn’t make it not problematic,” Jez said. “I would love for higher ed institutions to really think about this early on.”

She noted that colleges should consider students’ early career outcomes even before they matriculate.

“I think a lot of people will say that higher ed isn’t vocational,” Jez said. “[But] it is the reason why people are going to college today and it has to help students make good transitions into work.”

Jez highlighted California’s recent establishment of the California Education Interagency Council, a statewide coordinating body aimed at breaking down silos between higher education and workforce development efforts.

“This is something we’ve advocated for,” Jez said, adding that the council will help set a strategic plan and address cross-sector issues.

“If we’re serious about strengthening the value of higher education, the first step is listening to students’ needs,” Jez said. “They know what they need and they know the struggle they’ve had.”

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December 16, 2025
3 Questions for U-M Suzanne Dove
The last time we caught up with Suzanne Dove in September of 2024, she was serving as the assistant vice president, strategy and innovation at Bentley University. This past May, Suzanne started a new role as Chief Education Solutions Officer in the Center for Academic Innovation (CAI) at the University of Michigan (U-M). Now, a few months in her new role, I thought this would be a good time to check in with Suzanne.

Q1: Tell us about your new job. What does a Chief Education Solutions Office do? Where does your role fit in with CAI and U-M as a whole?

A: At the Center for Academic Innovation, my role as the inaugural Chief Education Solutions Officer (or CESO) is to open a new learning innovation horizon for the Center and help U-M achieve its next tier of educational impact. I do this by creating sustainable strategic partnerships that enable us to serve workforce and talent development needs of external organizations.

CAI has long been known for offering well-designed, U-M faculty-led online courses to millions of learners and thousands of organizations. This breadth gives us an advantage: Our teams have developed tacit knowledge as well as processes to stand up and scale successful programs ranging from MOOCs on platforms, like Coursera, to U-M online degree programs to innovative short-form offerings and integration of advanced technology into hybrid, online and residential learning.

With Michigan Online giving us even more flexibility, we can go further. We are positioned to partner directly with organizations that need high-quality workforce and talent development and offering features that both learning and development leaders and adult learners value, such as cohort-based learning, live sessions with U-M faculty, and customized content.

Like any new leadership role, a big part of my job is setting strategic priorities and putting the right operational structures in place. Equally important, if not more so, is building strong, collaborative relationships across three overlapping circles.

The first is CAI itself, a community of experts in online learning, project management, marketing, media production, ed tech and more who make it possible as I build the Education Solutions team to engage with external partners and craft relevant offerings that fit their needs. The second is leaders and faculty across U-M, many of whom are excited about expanding the university’s reach to nondegree learners and appreciate how our team brings market insights and industry relationships. The third circle is external organizations that are serious about upskilling their employees and are challenging the status quo around professional development and work-based learning. The partnerships I’m most energized by are those that challenge us to design innovative learning solutions that benefit learners, their organizations and the university. For a thriving workforce in a rapidly shifting landscape, we need to move boldly.

Right now, my day-to-day focus is on three things, in collaboration with other teams within CAI: building a strong partnership pipeline, making sure there’s a good fit between partners’ needs and CAI’s offerings, and ensuring we can deliver these solutions efficiently through Michigan Online. There’s a considerable operational component with any new endeavor and I’m really excited about that right now—it’s what gets me going in the morning! For example, how can we enhance traditional partnership development practices using generative AI? What new insights can we draw by digging into our existing data with an organizational lens? etc.

Q2: Knowing you for a good number of years now, I know that you’ve worked hard to develop as an academic innovation leader. What was it about this particular role at U-M that inspired you to make this big professional (and personal) move?

A: The University of Michigan’s Center for Academic Innovation (CAI) has earned a reputation as a national leader in shaping the future of lifelong learning. I could not imagine a better place to take this next step in my career. I feel grateful to have the support of my family and friends—they have been an invaluable source of encouragement and have been almost as excited as I am about the move! From the beginning of the interview process, I could tell that my new colleagues at CAI take organizational culture seriously and, as I have been onboarding, the CAI team has gone out of their way to extend a warm welcome, offering concrete guidance to help me succeed and just being incredibly helpful as I navigate the move to Ann Arbor.

I’ve always relished the challenges of sharpening an impactful idea, taking it from conception to development and experimentation to scale and sustainability. As I’ve settled into this role, I have found that CAI “on the inside” matches the external image I had formed before I joined the organization. I’m impressed by the strong leadership vision and strategic mindset of my colleagues on the Center’s senior leadership team as well as the interest in ideation and experimentation, the deep expertise and operational excellence at every level on the various teams that make up the Center.

Creating the CESO role came from a clear commitment to an idea that has taken root at many U.S. universities in the past several years: that higher education institutions should serve not just degree-seeking students but also workforce development demands of our regions and talent development needs of external organizations more broadly. Trouble is, universities tend to be decentralized, and it can be a struggle to coordinate across different units with overlapping missions. So, when it comes time to execute on this vision, success may occur in pockets, but scaled solutions can hover out of reach. I was energized by the opportunity to step into the CESO role at CAI, where scale and global reach are part of our core value proposition.

Q3: What career advice do you have for other non-faculty educators interested in growing into a leadership role? What skills, experiences and networks have been most valuable to you across your higher education career?

A: We already talked about the importance of mentors and sponsors in our last conversation, so I won’t repeat myself on that topic. Another important lesson is to tend your network. I know the term “networking” often carries a transactional connotation that can be off-putting to mission-driven folks who value community. But in fact, I think of the network of academic innovators I’ve been lucky enough to work with as a community or web, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Here are a few strategies I’ve found helpful when investing in that network:
- Is there a former colleague you’ve fallen out of touch with? Set a monthly or quarterly reminder to reach out to three people you’ve worked with in the past (holidays are a great opportunity to reach out and let someone know you’re thinking of them!). Share an article or a joke that reminded you of them, ask for their help in a small way and offer your help in return, ask about something important in their lives, or just let them know you thought of them.
- Cross-functional committees or cross-institutional organizations or conferences can be a great way to meet people and hear perspectives you wouldn’t ordinarily encounter. Sometimes, a few people discover a mutual interest and want to continue the conversation outside the committee or conference. Can you make a move that will help make this happen? Maybe you offer to compile email addresses of those who’d like to continue the conversation, maybe you’re even willing to organize a few virtual meetings so the group can come together. These types of small but visible investments will be valued by your peers and help you build your network.
This year, two of my most treasured academic innovation colleagues passed away suddenly. They were two of the people I would call on to help me sharpen an idea, to offer support when I was feeling discouraged, or to share in the excitement of a successful experiment. I miss them every day, and it reminds me about the importance of community, not just for learners but for learning innovators. So I guess my best career advice today is, keep nurturing your network.
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December 16, 2025
Colleges Don’t “Over-Accommodate” Disabilities (opinion)
In the current climate, one might question whether academic accommodations are the most urgent avenue for discourse. Yet a pattern of uncontested opinion pieces in spaces like The Atlantic (the newly published “Accommodation Nation”), The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Are Colleges Getting Disability Accommodations All Wrong?), The Wall Street Journal (“Colleges Bend the Rules for More Students, Give Them Extra Help”) and, indeed, Inside Higher Ed itself (“How Accommodating Can (Should) I Be?”) speaks to the enduring cultural conflict around how the Americans With Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act are actualized in higher education.

As members of the executive board of the Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) in Virginia—a professional organization for staff of disability service offices—It is our intention to define and defuse the recurring arguments of this specific “type” of opinion article, which for convenience we will call the “Do Colleges Over-Accommodate?” piece.

Setting the Table With Statistics

It is common to see these claims begin from an assumption that disability accommodations “are skyrocketing”—a claim that sensationalizes statistics. One author cites the large volume of accommodation letters sent by a university per semester. Such a claim is rooted in either misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation of accommodations. At any institution, the total count of all accommodation letters sent appears disproportionately large, because each student is enrolled in multiple courses.

A better accounting would come from data on the representation of disabled students within the institution. Recent National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) data shows that among public, 4-year institutions, 10.1 percent of them report that students with disabilities make up 10 percent or more of their student population. This is an increase from the 1.5 percent of institutions in 2010–2011, but why is it shocking that disabled students also want to go to universities that their nondisabled peers attend?

The NCES data do suggest that disabled students are more likely to enroll in private institutions (more than 23 percent of private nonprofit colleges report that students with disabilities make up 10 percent or more of their student population). While this is supportive of a claim that students from privileged backgrounds have higher access to accommodations (and indeed, research supports this) it is telling that authors who put elite institutions in the spotlight are more focused on reducing accommodations available to these students than on increasing the support available to students at less elite institutions.

It is also important to view these figures in the context of the post-ADA era. The ADA is only 35 years old, and its amendments passed in 2008. Today’s students come from an environment where they are more likely to expect accessibility, which is reflected in these “skyrocketing”—or “breathtaking”—numbers.

Categorizing the Case Against Accommodations
In our review of the “Do Colleges Over-Accommodate” archetype, we saw a clear pattern of essential recurring arguments:

Academic accommodations unfairly advantage disabled students.

Disabled students “game the system.”

More rigid documentation standards are needed to “create equity.”

In these arguments, we see unfortunate parallels to other attacks on civil rights playing out in our public discourse. Each individual claim requires a full-throated counterargument—which we will provide below.
Claim: Accommodations Convey Advantage

This is the most prevalent claim within these articles, and we will spend the greatest effort defusing it. This claim suggests that all accommodations create advantages for students with disabilities—that we should fear for “fairness,” or that accommodations will compromise rigor. In this piece, the author asserts that additional testing time for students with disabilities “is as unfair to other students as a head start would be to other runners.”

This metaphor reveals a flawed assumption—that education is inherently a place of competition, with a fixed number of winners and losers. A zero-sum game. But universities are not limited in their capacity to provide degrees, nor is there a fixed number of A’s available.

Still, there is value in ensuring fairness. Disability services officers (DSOs) develop rigorous criteria for assessing and analyzing cases where academic accommodations would “fundamentally alter” key aspects of courses. DSOs also seek to apply a measured approach to approval of accommodations, consistent with professional guidance. The purpose of accommodations—to return to the metaphor—is ensuring that students run in the same race.

Research such as this 2022 U.K.-based study, which found that accommodations in most cases “worked as intended and helped [with] leveling the playing field,” challenges this narrative further.

The work of DSOs relies on an interactive process at the individual level. A student who is dyslexic may benefit from a dictation tool for writing essays in a way that another would not. A student who has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder may benefit from a quiet testing environment—but not all students with the same diagnosis would have the same needs. The individualized identification and selection of supports to address disability-specific barriers is the cornerstone of DSO work, and it is work that our offices conduct effectively.

Claim: Disabled Students ‘Game the System’

Running through these articles is an implicit—at times explicit—assumption that DSOs are either tricked by students and their medical providers into approving accommodations inappropriately, or that students deliberately misuse even appropriate accommodations. Implicitly, this assumption is communicated to readers through less-than-subtle reliance on words like “claim” for how students communicate their disability, rather than “disclose.” Explicitly, this line of argument appeals to scholarship debating the ways in which individual disabilities are defined.

Some of the most-cited sources in support of this claim are of questionable reliability. For example, this article from the Canadian Journal Psychological Injury and Law has been held as “sobering” evidence that DSOs are insufficiently rigorous in approving accommodations. In the study, researchers asked DSO staff if they would accommodate a fictitious prospective student based solely on what the researchers deemed insufficient documentation.

Setting aside gaps in context between Canada and the U.S., what a DSO professional would hypothetically do and what they would do when presented with a live student are different. Our professional guidelines encourage the use of self-report, triangulated with other forms of information. Without following a student through the interactive process, the authors project bias and incorrect assumptions onto the work of DSO professionals—just as asking a doctor to suggest treatment without an exam would likely produce similarly “sobering” results.

Claim: Rigid Documentation Requirements Create Equity

The inaccuracy of this claim is likely to be apparent to anyone involved in accommodations review. Moreover, some of the sources cited by proponents of this claim directly contradict it. For example, Ashley Yull’s 2015 article about the intersection of race class, and disability notes:

“Premising access to accommodations in post-secondary education on receipt of a psychiatric diagnosis magnifies the negative impact of childhood poverty.”

And Bea Waterfield and Emma Whelan observed in their 2017 article:

“SES [socioeconomic status] contributes to the experience of disadvantage for learning disabled students when they lack the financial means to obtain required diagnoses.”

It is no wonder that scholars would dispute that documentation is a lever for equity, given the staggering cost of psychological assessments. There is variance in the pricing of these assessments, but in some areas they can cost between $1,000 and $5,000. While some university-operated assessment centers can be less costly, they typically have very long waiting lists. Meanwhile, 1 in 5 dependent undergraduate students come from families below the poverty line—and nearly half of independent students (those without financial support from family) met this criterion.

Financial cost is not the only barrier to accessing rigorous documentation. Mental health providers experience significant demand, stretching wait times and disproportionately impacting rural and marginalized communities.

If DSOs demanded that each student claiming a learning disability or ADHD diagnosis supply such a document, accommodations would be unavailable to poorer students and to many students from rural areas. For all students, the provision of accommodations would be delayed. This is why those working as DSOs are often so willing to work with students when they can articulate an access barrier. To claim otherwise can be understood as either a statement of ignorance about disability services or, perhaps, as reflective of a desire for accommodation requests to diminish.

Conclusion
As we noted, our goal is to present a measured response to these opinion essays. Having done so, we will do our readers the service of stating our own view:

Disability services professionals are thoughtful and effective in discharging their responsibilities in the interactive process.

Disabled students belong on college campuses, and accommodations serve to enable access to higher education.

Accommodations level the playing field for students within environments that were built without considering their very existence.

Rigidity in the interactive process burdens the student, and these burdens disproportionately impact marginalized communities.

We encourage readers to draw their own conclusions—however, in doing so, we encourage you to listen to the voices of the disabled community, disability services professionals, and those with stakes and experience in navigating the accommodations process.
In the current climate, where we are asked to consider whether empathy might be a sin, and whether disability might be incongruent with merit in the workplace, it is important to uplift these voices. It is important to stand firm in the knowledge of the expertise and value of those in helping professions. It is important to affirm that all means all, and that includes students with disabilities.

Chris Parthemos and Martina Svyantek are the president-elect and president, respectively, of the Association on Higher Education and Disability in Virginia.
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December 16, 2025
Sick of Doomscrolling? Join This New Research Paper Collective Instead

Anuja Uppuluri used to spend a lot of time scrolling social media apps dictated by algorithms designed to keep users glued to their screens no matter how mind-numbing the content.

“I always had something else that I could be doing or wanted to be doing, but I was choosing to watch TikTok videos for five hours,” said Uppuluri, who completed a bachelor’s degree in information systems at Carnegie Mellon University in May. “And then by the end of it I couldn’t remember anything that I had watched.”

Uppuluri, who now works as a machine learning engineer for Anthropic, sought to become more intentional about the information she consumes and has since scaled back her social media usage. Rather than scroll aimlessly, she wanted to fill her time digesting more research related to her career field, especially about the inner workings and implications of increasingly prevalent generative artificial intelligence tools.

She discovered all types of academic papers, articles and blog posts she wanted to read, but it wasn’t easy to keep organized. “I didn’t know where to put all of this stuff, because there’s no central location for it,” Uppuluri told Inside Higher Ed. “I started thinking about how I want to use my research and what I want to see from other people’s research.”

So Uppuluri developed Paper Trails, which she described as “Goodreads for academic papers” in an X post announcing the website’s launch last week. “I built it because I wanted a place where engaging with research felt fun, beautiful, and personal to you.”

Similar to the book-focused website Goodreads, Paper Trails is designed to help users discover new research and ideas, though it’s not powered by an AI algorithm. It’s a crowd-sourced platform where users can post links to papers from any field, peruse summaries of those papers, create shelves (public reading lists), and comment, review or rate papers.

In the week since its public debut, Paper Trails has grown its users from 10 to 2,200; the number of articles available on the site has increased from 20 to 3,100.

Inside Higher Ed spoke with Uppuluri to hear more about her vision for Paper Trails.

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Q: What sparked your interest in reading more academic research, especially about computer science and AI?

A: I always thought of a computer scientist as someone who writes code, builds infrastructure and makes sure systems are built to scale. But AI is blurring the line between research and engineering. Every new discovery that comes out of a large language model (LLM) lab is research-oriented.

Understanding why the technology is the way it is can be done by reading papers and understanding the research about large language models. These models are like black boxes—you can’t entirely understand what’s going on inside it—and that’s created all of the research subfields. For example, a subfield called interpretability is about trying to interpret what the models are doing. The more you do with these models, the more you have to read to understand how they work to gain context on how to build things better.

Q: How did your previous experiences reading and writing research papers inform the creation of Paper Trails?

A: A research paper to me used to mean something related to medicine, chemistry or biology. I didn’t understand or realize that it had a place in computer science until a few months before I wrote the only research paper I did in college. For that paper, I wrote the methodology and code, but my co-author, who was doing his Ph.D., helped me structure the paper, write the references and get it through the formatting process. It felt like a high barrier to entry for doing and reading research, which I associated with work instead of fun.

I thought having some type of casual thing like [Paper Trails] to organize research papers would maybe help me read more. But other existing websites I experimented with looked so dated and used software I had to learn. It looked complicated and didn’t seem fun. I also didn’t want to organize my research in a big Google Doc that has 50 links on it that I’m never going to touch again—that looks ugly.

So, I knew I could probably make my own site that looks nice and is easy to use.

At its core, Paper Trails is a tool to put papers and other reading material together in a way that’s pretty and fun. Sometimes that’s what you need to make something feel more like a hobby rather than more work you have to do.

Q: What went into developing the Paper Trails website and how does it work?

A: I coded most of it from scratch, with the exception of pasting in a few codes to fix some bugs.

When I first launched, there were only around 20 papers on the site. Now, there’s around 3,000 just from more people being on the site and adding the things that they want to read.

I chose not to mass import a bunch of stuff at the outset because if people look at it and it’s not something they’re interested in, it’s still there. It’s kind of cool to look at every single paper and know that it’s there because it’s something on someone else’s reading list.

Everything on the main page is organized by publication date. You can also use keywords to search or just click some buttons to see what people are logging. There is no personalized algorithm for users. While there isn’t anything necessarily wrong with a recommendation assistant, it’s also nice when there’s nothing telling you what to look at.

Q: What is the value of Paper Trails for its users?

A: There’s a lot of people who would like to get into research or just reading more. And if you want to spend your time in that way, having a tool to help you do it and encourage you to do makes it a lot easier to follow through on.

There’s also value coming from all the people that make it a collaborative thing. It allows people to explore, kind of like going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. You can just keep clicking on random links and reading. You don’t know what you’re going to learn at the start of your session but, if you’re interested in it, you can read it.

Q: Now that people are showing interest, what are the next steps for Paper Trails?

A: I was thinking about sending it to some of my old professors, especially if they have Ph.D. students who may be interested in working on it.

There are even more elements that I could add that would improve the user experience. A lot of people have papers that are already saved on another site, so being able to bulk import would be helpful. Or allowing a few people to edit a shelf rather than just one person could make collaboration a little bit better. Or being able to clone somebody’s shelf so that another user can add some of their own stuff to it.

I don’t know exactly what growth looks like. But to me, success means the people using it are happy.

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December 16, 2025
Education Dept. $15M Fund to Support Talent Marketplaces

The statewide talent marketplaces should include credential registries, learning and employment records, and skills-based job description generators.

ATHVisions/E+/Getty Images

The Department of Education launched a new $15 million grant competition to promote the development of what it calls statewide “Talent Marketplaces,” or digital systems that track the credentials, employment records and skills of students and graduates.

“Talent Marketplaces give learners, earners, and employers a clearer way to validate skills, opening doors to stackable credentials and stronger recognition of prior learning and work experience,” Nick Moore, the acting assistant secretary for the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education said in a Friday news release about the program. “As we expand these systems, we open more pathways into good jobs, support broader participation in the workforce, and help strengthen our Nation’s economy.”

The announcement came just days after the House Education and Workforce Committee held a hearing about expanding access to similar Learning and Employment Records. The goal, according to Republicans in both Congress and the Education Department, is to help institutions better match talent to opportunity and expand access to career pathways with a positive return on investment.

In this first competition, the department will identify up to 10 award winners, each of whom will receive a portion of the $15 million as well as technical assistance in refining and implementing their development plans. It is unclear based on the news release where the funding for this program will come from.

The application will open in January, according to the release.

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December 16, 2025
College Park President Cleared of Plagiarism Claims

An investigation cleared Pines of academic misconduct.

University of Maryland, College Park

University of Maryland College Park President Darryll Pines did not commit academic misconduct, an investigation determined, clearing him of plagiarism allegations that emerged last September.

A joint investigation that involved both the campus and the University System of Maryland but was led by an outside law firm “found no evidence of misconduct on the part of President Pines,” according to an emailed announcement from College Park and system officials sent on Friday.

Last fall, Pines was accused of lifting 1,500 words from a tutorial website for a 5,000-word paper that he co-authored in 2002, and of later reusing that same text for a 2006 publication, according to the initial allegations against him that first broke in The Daily Wire, a conservative website.

Pines disputed the claims from the start, stating that they had no merit.

However, Joshua Altmann, who wrote the text that Pines was accused of lifting, told Inside Higher Ed last year that “I do consider it to be plagiarism, and not worthy of an academic.”

The investigation, which concluded after more than a year, included three rounds of external reviews and was extended to other articles Pines wrote. While it found no evidence of misconduct, investigators noted attribution errors in some works.

“The committee did determine that the two works highlighted last year contained select portions of text previously published by another author in the introductory sections. In a separate text, a discrepancy in assignment of authorship was made. However, President Pines was not found responsible for the inclusion of such text in any of the three works, nor was he found responsible for scholarly misconduct of any kind,” College Park and system officials announced last week.

Officials also expressed confidence in Pines’s leadership going forward.

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December 16, 2025
Global lessons for the UK: how Singapore and India are embedding AI in education
This blog was kindly authored by Dr Karryl Kim Sagun Trajano (Research Fellow, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Dr Gayatri Devi Pillai (Assistant Professor, HHMSPB NSS College for Women, Trivandrum), Professor Mohanan Pillai (Pondicherry University), Dr Hillary Briffa (Senior Lecturer, Department of War Studies, KCL), Dr Anna Plunkett (Lecturer, Department of War Studies, KCL), Dr Ksenia Kirkham (Senior Lecturer, Department of War Studies, KCL), Dr Özge Söylemez (Lecturer, Defence Studies Department, KCL), Dr Lucas Knotter (Lecturer, Department of Politics, Languages, and International Studies University of Bath), and Dr Chris Featherstone (Associate Lecturer, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of York).

This blog draws on insights from the 2025 BISA-ISA joint Workshop on AI Pedagogies: Practice, Prompts and Problems in Contemporary Higher Education, sponsored by the ASPIRE (Academic Scholarship in Politics and International Relations Education) Network.

As the UK continues to work out how best to regulate and support the use of AI in higher education, other countries have already begun to put their ideas into practice. Singapore and India, in particular, offer useful contrasts. Both link technological innovation to questions of social inclusion, though they do so in different ways: Singapore focuses on resilience and lifelong learning, while India emphasises access and the use of vernacular languages. Comparatively, their experiences show how education policy can harness AI to advance both innovation and inclusion, making technological progress a driver of social cohesion. British tertiary education institutions have, for a long time, drawn international lessons mainly from their close western neighbours, but it would be wise to broaden their horizons.

Singapore: AI for resilience and lifelong learning

Singapore’s approach to AI in education is rooted in its Smart Nation 2.0 vision, which emphasises the three goals of “Growth, Community and Trust”. The government aims to develop a digitally skilled workforce of 15,000 AI practitioners by 2027, linking education reform to national capability-building. Within this framework, AI pedagogy is closely tied to the idea of social resilience, which is understood in Singaporean policy as the capacity of society to remain cohesive, adaptable, and functional in the face of disruption.

This vision is implemented through a coordinated ecosystem connecting local universities, AI Singapore (AISG), and the SkillsFuture programme. SkillsFuture uses AI-driven analytics to personalise re-skilling courses, design decision-making simulations, and encourage collaboration between government, industry, and academia. The Centre for Strategic Futures extends this agenda by promoting “AI for personal resilience”, framing digital competence as part of civic participation and collective preparedness.

Even so, workshop discussions highlighted persistent challenges. Access to elite universities remains uneven, and foreign workers are largely excluded from many lifelong-learning initiatives. Participants also noted that AI training tends to focus on technical ability, leaving less room for ethical debate or critical reflection. To some extent, the drive to innovate has moved faster than efforts to make AI education fully inclusive or reflective.

Singapore’s experience nonetheless illustrates how AI can be built into the wider social purpose of education. For the UK, it offers a reminder that digital innovation and civic responsibility can reinforce one another when universities treat learning as a public good. Graduates who understand both the capabilities and the limits of AI are better equipped to navigate complex socio-political, and technological environments. When built into lifelong-learning systems, AI education helps create the networks of knowledge and trust that make societies more adaptable and resilient.

India: AI for inclusivity and vernacular access

If Singapore shows what is possible through tight coordination in a small, centralised system, India demonstrates how the same principles are tested when applied across a country of continental scale and diversity. India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 sets out a comprehensive vision for transforming the education system to meet the demands of a rapidly changing global economy. It aims to raise the higher education gross enrolment ratio to 50% by 2035 and introduces flexible, learner-centred degree structures designed to encourage creativity and critical thinking. Artificial intelligence is central to this reform, “catalysing” both curricular innovation and system-wide modernisation.

The National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR) and the AI for All initiative embed AI within educational design and delivery. The University of Kerala’s Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUGP), implemented under the NEP in 2024-25, is demonstrative of how these reforms are taking shape. AI tools now support continuous assessment, effectively and efficiently enabling educators to tailor material to individual learning needs and diverse assessment methods. These developments signal a wider shift in pedagogy, from one-off examinations toward continuous and formative evaluation that prioritises understanding and reflection.

At the heart of the strategy lies India’s focus on linguistic and cultural inclusion. NEP 2020 mandates the use of regional languages in instruction and assessment, aligning with government programmes that promote vernacular content and accessible digital platforms. This multilingual approach helps extend higher education to students previously marginalised by linguistic barriers, while AI-assisted translation and adaptive interfaces further improve access for learners with disabilities.

As with Singapore’s efforts, however, India’s reform agenda is not without its shortcomings. The NEP reflects the aspirations of a growing middle class and the logic of global competitiveness, raising concerns about commercialisation and uneven implementation, particularly at scale. Still, it represents one of the most ambitious efforts worldwide to connect digital innovation with social justice through deliberate policy design. For the UK, the lesson is clear: technological efficiency must be matched by cultural understanding and genuine inclusion, ensuring that advances in AI expand participation in higher education rather than deepen existing divides.

Comparative insights for the UK

Singapore and India approach AI in education from very different starting points, and each offers lessons worth considering. Singapore demonstrates the impact of close coordination between government and universities, supported by steady investment in applied research. India, meanwhile, is emblematic of how digital inclusion can extend beyond elite institutions when policy design takes account of linguistic diversity and regional inequality.

For the UK, these examples point to a shared message: progress depends on coherence. Many initiatives already exist, from Joint Information Systems Committee Jisc’s advancement of the digital capabilities framework to Advance HE’s support to prepare for an AI-enabled future and the Russell Group’s guidance on generative AI, but they remain generally disconnected to date.

Learning from Singapore and India could help the UK move towards a more consistent approach. That might involve:
- developing a national framework for AI in higher education that sets clear expectations around ethics and inclusion;
- funding staff training and digital literacy programmes inspired by Singapore’s emphasis on lifelong learning;
- supporting multilingual and accessible AI tools that mirror India’s focus on linguistic and regional diversity;
- building evaluation mechanisms to understand how AI adoption affects equality of opportunity.
In the end, the challenge is less about technology, and more about governance. The UK has the capacity to lead in responsible AI education if policy connects local innovation to a national vision grounded in fairness and public trust.
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December 16, 2025