Professor Steven Jones on behalf of the Council for the Defence of British Universitie
Published:
HEPI’s new Policy Note finds striking consensus across the higher education community for more ethical, transparent and balanced university governance.
Summarising responses to the draft Code of Ethical University Governance from the Council for the Defence of British Universities (CDBU), this Policy Note finds that 81% of the 129 submissions received endorse the principle of a new ethical code. This signals a widespread recognition that governance structures must better reflect the educational and public missions that universities serve.
The revised CDBU Code directly responds to the concerns raised in the consultation and offers practical ways to reduce power imbalances, avoid insular decision-making and bring greater transparency to governor recruitment.
The author of this report, and the author of a second report HEPI is publishing on governance in the run-up to Christmas will be at a free webinar on governance issues running on Thursday, 11 December 2025 from 10am to 11am. Sign up now to hear our speakers explore the key issues.
Join HEPI for a webinar on Thursday 11 December 2025 from 10am to 11am to discuss how universities can strengthen the student voice in governance to mark the launch of our upcoming report, Rethinking the Student Voice. Sign up now tohear our speakersexplore the key questions.
This blog was kindly authored by Dr John Cater, Chair of The Unite Foundation, and former Vice Chancellor of Edge Hill University.
It is the first blog in HEPI’s series with The Unite Foundation on how to best support care experienced and estranged students.
Today, the Unite Foundation launches its Blueprint for a #HomeAtUniversity, a guide to support universities in building a safe and stable home for care experienced and estranged students. Why?
Unite Students, our principal sponsor, operates with a clear awareness of commercial considerations and the expectations of its shareholders. Yet, from its earliest days, it has also been a business with a strong moral purpose: to provide homes for (mostly) young people in higher education as they transition from late teens into independent adulthood. Reflecting this commitment, more than a dozen years ago, Unite Students chose to fund a separate, free-standing charity – the Unite Foundation – to support care experienced and estranged students at university. A key part of this support has been the provision of free accommodation for a full three-year period, including vacations, for what is now almost 900 students.
But it is more than this. As our work develops, the Unite Foundation is committed to helping care experienced and estranged students build their own mutual support networks. To support this, we have been lobbying and working with policy-makers and higher education staff members to ensure that all of those who leave care at the age of eighteen do so with a rent guarantor, better enabling the transition into independent living and the labour market.
Progress is being made, but there remains much to do.
At present, there are some 17,000 care experienced and / or estranged students recorded as in higher education, but this figure would be three times higher if the progression rate from Level Three matched that of the host population.
To be clear, this is primarily a matter of opportunity, not ability.
Not surprisingly, even amongst those successful in accessing higher education, we see from OfS data that care experienced and estranged students also have lower continuation and completion rates, with withdrawals in the first year of study nearly double those of the student population as a whole.
But this understandably weaker performance can be turned around; independent research by Jisc for the Unite Foundation has shown that care leaver and estranged students in accommodation guaranteed and funded for three years by the Unite Foundation and its partners broadly matches the total population both in retention and in performance – eliminating the 13.4 percentage point discrepancy in the award of ‘good’ (1st and upper 2nd class honours) degrees. And, whilst the Unite Foundation scholarship is currently the only intervention evidenced at Office for Students’ Tier 2 level, the tide is flowing with us. We are seeing increased recognition of the importance that accommodation plays, both in addressing the basic needs of care experienced students as well as enabling greater progression and completion in higher education. This includes:
These all recognise the importance of accommodation in providing for a secure and stable experience.
We now have a duty to act to make this a reality.
The Blueprint
So what is our newly published Blueprint recommending?
Guaranteed safe and stable accommodation, year-round
A personal housing plan for each care experienced or estranged student
A record that regularly updates how care experienced and estranged students are progressing
The removal of the rent guarantor barrier
Optional early check-in and enhanced support on arrival and induction
Accommodation scholarships
We know that every university context is different and that each university will develop a safe and stable #HomeAtUniversity in a different way. As a result, for each of our recommended actions, we are building a bank of case studies, ‘how-to’ guides and other useful links to help institutions navigate their journey. Visit www.unitefoundation.org.uk/blueprint to find out more.
In supporting universities to build a #HomeAtUniversity, and commending the moral imperative that underpins this, we are also commending better recruitment – until we match sector norms, there are some 40,000 care leavers aged 18-21 that are not currently in higher education – better retention, better continuation, better degree results, better labour market outcomes. And for the University, retained tuition fee income, improved performance measures, including in your Access and Participation Plan, a contribution to your NECCL Quality Mark and Care Leaver Covenant Pledge and, most of all, the sense of providing the opportunity for those who have had fewer chances to fulfil their potential.
Where now?
We know that accommodation is a cross-institution issue, and, in the coming months, we will create Blueprint resources to support different stakeholders across universities, from finance directors, to student union reps, to widening access officers. From my experience as a long-standing Vice-Chancellor I know that this kind of roadmap, this Blueprint, is motivating in supporting complex institutions to move forward, changing lives and life chances. If you want to know more, do reach out to Kate Brown, Co-Director of the Unite Foundation.
Professor Adrian Wright, Dr Mark Wilding, Mary Lawler and Martin Lowe
Published:
A new major report from HEPIand the University of Central Lancashire reveals the realities of UK student lifeand highlights how paid work is increasingly an everyday part of the student experience.
Student Working Lives (HEPI Report 195), written by Professor Adrian Wright, Dr Mark Wilding, Mary Lawler, Martin Lowe, draws on extensive research to show how students are juggling study, employment and caring responsibilities in the midst of a deepening cost-of-living crisis. The findings paint a striking picture of students for whom paid work has become a necessity, not a choice. Findings suggest two-thirds of students work to cover their basic living costs, and 26% of students work to support their families.
The report looks at the type of work students are employed in, as well as the impact this has on their study. It calls for systemic reform across the higher education sector to design a higher education that moves away from assuming a full-time residential model, and supports student realities.
The NHS faces a growing clinical placement crisis that threatens the future of its workforce. A new HEPI and University of London report calls for bold, system-wide reform to ensure students get the real-world experience they need to deliver safe, high-quality care.
HEPI and the University of London’s new report, Rethinking Placement: Increasing Clinical Placement Efficacy for a Sustainable NHS Future, which has been published with the support of the Council for Deans of Health, warns that the NHS cannot meet its ambitious workforce goals without bold reform of how students gain real-world experience. Co-authored by Professor Amanda Broderick and Robert Waterson of the University of East London, the report calls for a shift from simply creating more placements to delivering better ones—equitable, flexible, digitally enabled and aligned with the future of healthcare.
Drawing on innovation across London and beyond, the authors propose practical steps including simulation-based learning, new supervision frameworks and community-based models that can expand capacity without compromising quality. With over 106,000 vacancies across secondary care, the report urges policymakers, universities and NHS providers to act now to secure a sustainable, skilled and compassionate workforce for the next decade and beyond.
Too many students studying full-time honours degrees at university are causing higher education to be ‘over-consumed’.
A Call for Radical Reform: Higher Education for a Sustainable Economy by Professor Tim Blackman argues that full-time honours degrees were created when universities were small and elite institutions. They were rolled over into the modern mass system of higher education we have today, with little thought about the appropriateness and affordability of providing such a large volume of learning straight after school, with the educational content expected to last a lifetime.
Instead, Professor Tim Blackman says more people need to be studying shorter courses, spreading the cost over time while encouraging lifelong updating of skills and knowledge.
The HEPI / Kaplan Soft-Power Index looks at the number of very senior world leaders (monarchs, presidents and prime ministers) who studied at a higher level in another country.
Countries that have educated a significant proportion of the world’s most senior leaders are thought to benefit from a boost to their ‘soft power’.
The results for the leading two countries, the US and the UK, are broadly comparable to those for recent years but other countries, like France and Germany, fare worse than in past years while Russia and India have improved their position.
For the first time, the results are being published according to the institution that world leaders studied at. Harvard University and the University of Oxford lead the pack, with Sandhurst, the University of Cambridge, the LSE and the University of Manchester making up the rest of the top 6.
When launching the Soft Power Council in early 2025, the UK’s then Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon. David Lammy MP, said, ‘Soft power is fundamental to the UK’s impact and reputation around the world. I am often struck by the enormous love and respect which our music, sport, education and institutions generate on every continent.’ The HEPI / Kaplan Soft-Power Index offers one way to measure the extent of this soft power.
In 2025, the United States remains comfortably in first place, as their higher education institutions have educated 66 senior world leaders, which is only slightly lower than the US total for 2024 (68). The UK remains in a comfortable second place, having educated 59 world leaders. France performs less well than in the past but stays in third place, with 23 leaders.
The Index is based on a snapshot of world leaders for early August 2025. Changes since then are not reflected in the data. The Index should not be regarded as the only way to measure soft power and should be used alongside other sources of information.
Since the Soft-Power Index was launched in 2017, 81 (42%) of the countries in the world have had at least one very senior leader educated at a higher level in the UK. The Index is regularly quoted by UK Government Ministers – for example, last year’s results featured in this week’s Post-16 Education and Skills white paper.
World leaders educated in countries other than their own
For the first time this year, the results are also being published according to the institution that the leaders attended, with Harvard (15) and Oxford (12) topping the tree.
Harvard alone has educated more senior world leaders than all higher education institutions in Russia (13). Harvard has also educated more senior world leaders than Italy (5), Spain (5) and Germany (4) combined.
Key findings
The strong performance of the United States represents the country’s second best ever total (equal with 2022 but slightly down on 2024).
In terms of absolute score, the United Kingdom matches the best it has done since the Index began in 2017 (59), equalising the record that was also hit in 2019 and 2021.
France fares worse than in the past, with a big drop-off of 17 since 2019 from 40 to 23, but retains third place.
Russia posts its best performance, with 13 world leaders educated there, beating its previous high of 11 in 2022.
Australia (9, +2) remains in fifth place, while Switzerland is in sixth place (7, +1).
India scores its best ever performance. In 2022, only two serving very senior leaders had been educated to a higher level in India; in 2025, five had been – this is the same total as for Spain and also Italy.
Germany drops out of the top 10 for the first time, having educated just four serving world leaders, the same number as Canada, Germany, Morocco, the Netherlands and South Africa – and the same number as for the LSE alone.
The higher education institution that has educated the most current world leaders while they were international students is Harvard University (15), closely followed by the University of Oxford (13).
Five of the six best-performing institutions are situated in the UK, meaning world leaders educated in the UK tend to have been concentrated in a smaller number of institutions. While Harvard is the only US institution to have educated more than three serving world leaders, the UK has five institutions that have educated more than three: Oxford (13); Sandhurst (8); Manchester (6); Cambridge (5); and the LSE (4).
Institutions attended by very senior world leaders
Ranking
Higher education institution
Number of world leaders
1
Harvard
15
2
Oxford
12
3
Sandhurst
8
4
Manchester
6
5
Cambridge
5
6
LSE
4
7=
Boston
3
7=
Bristol
3
7=
George Washington
3
7=
New York
3
7=
Pennsylvania
3
7=
UCL
3
7=
US Army Command and Staff College
3
The 15 world leaders educated at Harvard are: i) the Prime Minister of Bhutan (Tshering Tobgay); ii) the President of Botswana (Duma Boko); iii) the Prime Minister of Canada (Mark Carney); iv) the King of Denmark (Frederik X); v) the President of Ecuador (Daniel Noboa); vi) the Prime Minister of Greece (Kyriakos Mitsotakis); vii) the Prime Minister of Israel (Benjamin Netanyahu); viii) the Prime Minister of Jordan (Jafar Hassan); ix) the Prime Minister of Lebanon (Nawaf Salam); x) the Prime Minister of Luxembourg (Luc Frieden); xi) the President of Moldova (Maia Sandu); xii) the Chief Minister of Sierra Leone (David Moinina Sengeh); xiii) the President of Singapore (Tharman Shanmugaratnam); xiv) the Prime Minister of Singapore (Lawrence Wong); and xv) the Prime Minister of South Korea (Kim Min-seok).
The 12 world leaders educated at the University of Oxford are: i) the King of Belgium (Philippe); ii) the King of Bhutan (Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck); iii) the Prime Minister of Canada (Mark Carney); iv) the President of East Timor (José Ramos-Horta); v) the Prime Minister of Hungary (Viktor Orbán); vi) the Emperor of Japan (Naruhito); vii) the King of Jordan (Abdullah II); viii) the President of Montenegro (Jakov Milatović); ix) the King of Norway (Harald V); x) the Sultan and Prime Minister of Oman (Haitham bin Tariq); xi) the President of the Philippines (Bongbong Marcos); and xii) the Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands (Jeremiah Manele).
Nick Hillman OBE, the Director of HEPI, said:
International students bring enormous benefits to the UK. They all spend money while they are here and some then contribute to the UK labour market after studying. The diplomatic benefits are less well understood even though they can be equally important. In 2025, over a quarter of the countries around the world have a very senior leader educated in the UK, which amounts to tremendous soft power.
The current UK Government have established a Soft Power Council and promised a new education exports strategy. These are welcome, but they are counterbalanced by the incoming levy on international students, huge dollops of negative rhetoric and excessive visa costs.
Recent new obstacles standing in the way of people wanting to study in Australia, Canada and the United States provide an opportunity for the UK to steal a march on our main competitors. We are at risk of squandering this opportunity.
Linda Cowan, Managing Director of Kaplan International Pathways, said:
It is fantastic to see how many of our best known universities are educating foreign leaders. This year’s list also highlights the growing diversity and range of institutions contributing to the UK’s soft power, including Cranfield, Leicester, Liverpool and Westminster.
Another trend to watch is the expansion of transnational campuses of British universities abroad, such as in India and the UAE. These initiatives have the potential to further enhance the UK’s soft power by extending the reach of our higher education sector beyond students coming to the UK – a development to watch going forward.
Professor Irene Tracey, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, said:
That so many world leaders have studied at Oxford speaks to the transformative power of education — to shape ideas, deepen understanding, and inspire service on the global stage.
Professor Duncan Ivison, the President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester, said:
If soft power is fundamental to the UK’s impact and reputation around the world, then so too are the UK’s outstanding universities.
The HEPI / Kaplan Soft-Power Index makes clear just how important international students are to the UK’s global influence – both now and into the future. Extraordinary future leaders get their start at many of our universities and retain a deep affection for our country long after. And yet the Government is, at the same time, putting up obstacles to welcoming future international students to the UK with a proposed international levy, higher visa costs and reducing the graduate visa route.
We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to make the UK the global destination for the best and the brightest in the world given what is happening elsewhere – and especially in the US and Canada. Let’s not blow it.
The 59 leaders educated in the UK lead 55 countries (as a small number of places – Bahrain, Luxembourg, Namibia and the United Arab Emirates have two very senior leaders educated in the UK). Changes affecting the UK list for 2025 are outlined in the table below. They include:
The Rt Hon. Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada since early 2025, studied Economics at the University of Oxford.
Taye Atske Selassie, the President of Ethiopia since late 2024, studied International Relations and Strategic Studies at Lancaster University.
The President, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, and Prime Minister, Elijah Ngurare, of Namibia, who have both been in post since early 2025, studied in the UK – the Namibian President studied at Glasgow Caledonian University as well as Keele University and the Prime Minister studied at University of Dundee.
The Prime Minister of Rwanda since July 2025, Justin Nsengiyumva, studied Economics at the University of Leicester.
The Prime Minister of Sri Lanka since autumn 2024, Harini Amarasuriya, studied Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh.
Click here to download a table showing all the countries with at least one senior leader educated in the UK for the whole period from 2017 to 2025.
The 66 world leaders from 58 countries educated in the United States head the following countries:
Bahrain (2); Bangladesh; Belgium; Belize; Bhutan (2); Botswana; Bulgaria; Cambodia; Canada; Costa Rica; Denmark; Dominica; Dominican Republic; East Timor; Ecuador; Egypt; Finland; Greece; Guinea-Bissau; Guyana; Haiti (2); Iceland (2); Ireland; Israel (2); Ivory Coast; Jordan (2); Kuwait; Latvia; Lebanon; Liberia; Luxembourg; Malawi; Malaysia; Marshall Islands; Micronesia; Moldova; Monaco; Montenegro; Namibia; Nigeria; Palau; Palestine; Panama; Paraguay; Philippines; Rwanda; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Sierra Leone (2); Singapore (2); Slovenia; Somalia; South Korea; Spain; Sudan; Switzerland; Togo; Tonga; and Vatican City.
Notes for Editors
1. Leaders are defined as heads of state and heads of government (monarchs, presidents and prime ministers). Countries often have more than one (such as a president or monarch and a prime minister).
2. Countries are included if they are members of, or observers at, the United Nations, currently numbering 195 places. Palestine is therefore included but Northern Cyprus, for example, is not.
3. The HEPI / Kaplan Soft-Power Index is a measure of tertiary education. This is defined broadly but distance learning and transnational education are excluded for the soft-power benefits are thought to be less.
4. Leaders change throughout the year, so we provide a snapshot for August 2025. For example, the fieldwork was undertaken prior to the recent change of leadership in Thailand.
5. Each country is treated equally and we do not claim each individual result provides good evidence of positive soft power. No one is excluded on moral grounds.
6. Some people are educated in more than one other country and they can therefore count towards the totals for more than one country.
7. While we use multiple sources to obtain information, the educational background of some national leaders is opaque. HEPI welcomes feedback that would enable us to build up a more complete picture.
8. When new information comes to light, we update the figures. So there are some slight differences in the figures provided here for earlier years compared with what we have published in the past. For example, in the preparation of the 2025 numbers, we found new information that reduced the recent past total for the US (as we discovered two leaders were distance learners rather than in-person learners).
9. King Charles III’s higher education was delivered in the UK (at the University of Cambridge), the country where he was born and lives, and he is head of state of other countries in part by virtue of his position in the UK. So we have opted to exclude this information. This matches how we treat the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, who is one of the heads of state (Co-Prince) of Andorra.
10. The University of the West Indies (UWI) serves 18 countries and territories in the Caribbean. Attempting to unpick the place of study for those world leaders who studied at the UWI is beyond the scope of this study. Therefore, we have assumed that each one studied in their home nation. This is the same practice as followed in earlier years.
Nick Hillman, HEPI Director, bottles his thoughts about this year’s Labour Party Conference.
As multiple fringe events showed, when it comes to higher education the Labour Conference was very busy, with notably more vice-chancellors in attendance than in days of yore.
My Conference sojourn started on Saturday with a trip to Liverpool’s famous Cavern Club to watch the brilliant in-house Beatles tribute band. At the time, I mused about which fab-four song might best sum up the next few days. ‘Taxman’ perhaps?
(If you drive a car) I’ll tax the street
(If you try to sit) I’ll tax your seat
(If you get too cold) I’ll tax the heat
(If you take a walk) I’ll tax your feet
In fact, when it came to higher education, the big news was a giveaway rather than a new tax. I’ll always remember where I was when Margaret Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister (in the Manchester University Students’ Union shop). Perhaps education policy wonks will similarly always remember where they were when they heard maintenance grants were on their way back (albeit for a second time – they were last reintroduced in the mid-2000s before being abolished a decade later).
In my case, I was with dozens of others in a fascinating HEPI fringe event on students’ cost of living, chaired by my colleague Rose Stephenson and featuring Alex Stanley (NUS), Gavan Conlon (London Economics) and Nic Beech (University of Salford). This came hot on the heels of two other HEPI fringe events – one on public opinion and higher education featuring a bevy of vice-chancellors and another with Cambridge University Press and Assessment on ‘Quality Matters’.
It was no surprise the news about maintenance grants won a spontaneous round of applause. It reminded me of the cheer I got during a speech to the University of Derby in 2016, when I read out the breaking news that UKIP’s Leader had just stood down (‘Nigel Farage resigns’, the Guardian reported, ‘after “achieving political ambition”’).
In both instances, the initial reaction was premature. Brexit was not the end of Faragism and it quickly became clear in Liverpool that the return of maintenance grants is not quite what it first seemed either.
Access to our colleges and universities shouldn’t just be for a wealthy few.
That’s why I’m bringing back maintenance grants for those who need them most.
Labour is ambitious for all our young people, no matter their background. I’m putting our values into action.
Most people who have calculated the cost of reintroducing grants have assumed it would cost something in the region of £2 billion a year. However, Ministers plan to fund the new grants via the proposed levy on international students’ fees, which is expected to raise around £600 million. So entitlement to the new means-tested grants will, it turns out, be limited by students’ course choice. You will be quids in only if you are studying what the politicians want you to study.
As I noted at the King’s College London Policy Institute fringe meeting on Wednesday afternoon, funding the new grants from the new levy may seem like clever politics, at least inside Number 10 and the Treasury and also perhaps by anyone seeking election as the Labour Party’s Deputy Leader.
Students and vice-chancellors have been desperate for grants to return and rightly so – for the reasons why, see our recent report on a Minimum Income Standard for Students with TechnologyOne and Loughborough University. But the levy / tariff / tax on international students is hated by those same students and vice-chancellors, putting them in something of a bind when it comes to responding to the Government’s announcement.
Not only do international students typically come from countries that are poorer than the UK, but they are already subsidising UK research and the teaching of domestic students. Now they are expected to contribute towards the day-to-day living costs of poorer home students too (just so long as those UK students are studying courses deemed to be of most economic value). Just how broad do Ministers think international students’ shoulders are?
Many of them come from wealthy backgrounds but some do not have very deep pockets and none is obliged to study in the UK rather than elsewhere. So our higher education institutions are unlikely to be able to pass on the full 6% without seeing a drop in demand.
It was great to witness so many backbench Labour MPs, like Alex Sobel, Daniel Zeichner, Abtisam Mohamed and Dr Lauren Sullivan, advocating for UK universities across the conference fringe programme. But more generally, there were parts of the Conference that felt flat as well as parts that were presumably in line with what the organisers wanted – including the Leader’s big set-piece speech. Starmer’s big reveal was the rejection of the ancient 50% target for young people’s participation in higher education in preference for a new target ‘That two-thirds of our children should go either to university… Or take a gold standard apprenticeship.’
The Prime Minister would be unlikely to welcome the comparison but this reminded me of nothing so much as David Cameron’s pledges as Prime Minister. In 2013, for example, Cameron said: ‘I want us to have as a new norm the idea that in school, everybody, everyone who can, either takes that path on to university, or takes that path on to an apprenticeship. You should be doing one or the other.’
The challenge is not coming up with such commitments; it is delivering them. Fewer adults are doing apprenticeships now than when David Cameron spoke, despite the introduction of an Apprenticeship Levy. Perhaps Starmer can succeed where Cameron and his successors failed…
At the end of the Conference, I was left feeling the biggest omission compared to past Labour Conferences was a clear and broad narrative about His Majesty’s Official Opposition: the Conservative Party. If the choice facing the country really is between ‘division’ and ‘decency’, as Keir Starmer says, then might not the best way to defeat division be, as with Le Pen in France or the AfD in Germany, for centre-right and centre-left parties to act together?
If Tony Blair and William Hague can work together, surely this is not impossible? But – and this is a personal opinion only – I left Liverpool wondering if the main problem for today’s Labour leadership is that they have spent the last 15 years making such strong criticisms of their bedfellows in the mainstream centre of British politics that they are unable to admit they may now need to work with the centre-right to stave off their worst fears.
Then again, perhaps today’s Tory Party also cannot see that the opposite of division is not so much ‘decency’ (however much we might want that) as collaboration. We’ll find out for certain next week as the policy caravan moves across the north-west to Manchester for the Conservative Party Conference. Do come to HEPI’s event there if you can – it is outside the secure zone so no expensive pass is needed.
Carole Cox, HEPI’s Events and Communications Administrator (and HEPI’s biggest Beatles’s fan) explains why Liverpool is the perfect place for day-trippers and long-stayers.
The City of Liverpool has the biggest single collection of Grade One listed buildings than any other English city outside London and it was named the European Capital of Culture in 2008. A football mecca, it also boasts a plethora of museums, including the World Museum, the International Slavery Museum, the Museum of Liverpool, Tate Liverpool and the Merseyside Maritime Museum.
It is also an interestingly quirky place, which harbours some amazing public toilets (you read that right). For example, if you ever happen to drop into the Philharmonic Dining Rooms in the Georgian Quarter, feel free to admire the famous Grade I-listed urinals in their pink marble splendour.
And then, there is the deservedly famous Mersey Beat. Liverpool and The Beatles, these are words that go together well.* The Liverpudlian group are considered the best-selling band in music history, hailed as pioneers who revolutionised the music industry and popular culture.
In summary, Liverpool is a ‘blast’ in more ways than one: a city which does not shy away from its heritage, a city with so much to offer culturally, but also a windy city open to the strong maritime winds gusting from the docks. Which may be why the French translation of the 1964 Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night is Les Quatre Garçons Dans Le Vent, a French colloquial idiom for their growing popularity – which, when translated word-for-word, awkwardly reads as ‘the four boys in the wind’.
* ‘these are words that go together well’ are lyrics from the 1965 Beatles song Michelle (Lennon/McCartney).
As policymakers look ahead to the bigger party conferences and students and staff ready themselves for the new academic year*, HEPI Director Nick Hillman takes a look ahead. [* Except in Scotland, where it has already begun.]
Information on HEPI’s own party conference events is available here.
Money’s Too Tight (to Mention)
When the Coalition Government for which I worked tripled tuition fees for undergraduate study to £9,000 back in 2012, it was a big and unpopular change. But it represented a real increase in support for higher education that led to real increases in the quality of the student experience, with improvements to staffing, facilities and student support services.
Because the fee rise shifted costs from taxpayers to graduates via progressive student loans, it enabled another fundamental change: the removal of student number caps in England. No longer would universities be forced to turn away ambitious applicants that they wanted to recruit. It was the final realisation of the principle that underlined the Robbins report of 1963: ‘courses of higher education should be available for all those who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so.’ A higher proportion of students enrolled on their first-choice place. (It never ceases to amaze me how many people wish to return to a world in which your children and mine have unwarranted obstacles reimposed between them and attaining the degree they want.)
But back in 2012, no one in their wildest dreams thought the new fee level would be frozen for most of the next decade and more. After all, the fee rise was implemented using the Higher Education Act (2004), which had enabled Tony Blair to introduce the current model of tuition fees, and the Blair / Brown Governments to raise fees each year without any fuss.
Yet the political ructions caused by introducing £9,000 fees in 2012 made policymakers timid. Towards the end of the Conservatives’ time in office, Ministers bizarrely sought to make a virtue of their pusillanimity. Even as inflation was biting, the Minister for Higher Education (Rob Halfon) said raising fees was ‘not going to happen, not in a million years’.
The result has been a crisis in funding for higher education institutions that has changed their priorities. Top-end universities have looked to increase their income via more and higher (uncapped) fees from international students – hardly surprising, when an international student taking a three-year degree is worth £69,000 a year more than a home student! They have also sought to tempt UK students away from slightly less prestigious institutions.
Meanwhile, newer universities have been even more entrepreneurial. Limited in their ability to recruit lots of international students, they have instead shifted towards franchising, whereby other organisations pay them for the privilege of teaching their degrees.
Universities in the middle have had a particularly tough time. Most notably, many universities originally founded in the expansionary post-Robbins environment are struggling today. (It has been suggested that the tie-up between Kent and Greenwich is partly borne of necessity.) Plus with no fees for home students, Scottish universities have been hurting even more than those elsewhere.
Even though recruiting more people from overseas and large-scale franchising have helped some institutions to keep the wolf from the door, Ministers have condemned both. The UK Home Office want fewer international students and England’s Department for Education have promised new legislation to tackle the growth in franchising. (Six months ago, Bridget Phillipson wrote in the Sunday Times, ‘I will also bring forward new legislation at the first available opportunity to ensure the Office for Students has tough new powers to intervene quickly and robustly to protect public money’.)
No British university has ever gone bust but, as financial advisers know, the past can be a sorry guide to the future. When asked, Ministers say they would accept the closure of a university or two. But a university is usually a big local employer, a big supporter of local civic life and a source of local pride – and money. Most have been built up from public funds.
Closing a university would not just risk local upset. It would reduce confidence, including among those who lend to universities, and could even risk a domino effect, as people lose faith in the system as a whole, thereby putting the reputation of UK education at risk. So there are good reasons why, for example, Dundee University is currently being bailed out, even if it comes with a distinct whiff of moral hazard.
Bills, Bills, Bills
Students are hurting just as much as institutions. Contrary to the expectations of years gone by, the proportion of school leavers proceeding to higher education is barely rising. There is likely more than one cause, including negative rhetoric about universities from across the political spectrum and a false sense that degree apprenticeships for school leavers are plentiful.
The standard maximum maintenance support in England is now worth a little over £10,000, which is just half the amount students need.
Parents are expected to support their student offspring but they are not officially told how much they should contribute.
England’s household income threshold at which state-based maintenance support begins to be reduced has not increased for over 15 years. At £25,000, it is lower than the income of a single-earner household on the minimum wage.
As a result, according to the HEPI / Advance HE Student Academic Experience Survey, over two-thirds of students now undertake paid employment during term time, often at a number of hours that negatively affects their studies. These students are limited in their ability to take part in extra-curricular activities, for they are time poor as well as strapped for cash.
An increase in maintenance support is long overdue, just as an increase in tuition fees for home students is long overdue. But we could also perhaps help students help themselves by providing better information in advance about student life. In particular, given the epidemic of loneliness among young people, we should remind them that you are more likely to be lonely if your room is plush but you do not have enough money left over for a social life than if your living arrangements are basic but your social life is lively.
The Masterplan
The Government came to office claiming to have a plan for tackling the country’s challenges. But more than a year on, the fog has not cleared on their plans for higher education. Patience is now wearing gossamer thin. As Chris Parr of Research Professional put it on Friday, ‘Still we wait.’ As far as we can discern from what we know, it seems universities will be expected to do more for less – on civic engagement, access and economic growth.
Higher education institutions have made it clear, including through Universities UK’s Blueprint, that they are keen to play their part in national renewal. But it is not only the financial squeeze that limits their room for manoeuvre. Political chaos as well as the geography of Whitehall threaten the institutional autonomy that has been the key ingredient of UK universities’ success.
Unlike in the past, there are different regulators, Ministers and Departments for the teaching and learning functions of universities on the one hand and their research functions on the other, meaning coordinated oversight is missing. The latest machinery of government changes risk another dog’s dinner, as ‘skills’ continue to bounce around Whitehall, newly residing for now (but who knows for how long) in the Department for Work and Pensions. Meanwhile, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is thought to have less regard for university-based research than for research conducted elsewhere, at least in contrast to the past.
Moreover, each of the two Ministers with oversight of higher education institutions (Baroness Smith and Lord Vallance) are newly split across two Whitehall departments, with one foot in each. This sort of approach tends to be a recipe for chaos. (As I saw close up during my own time in Whitehall, split Ministers usually reside primarily in just one of their two departments, the one where their main Private Office is situated.)
The choice now is clear. If Ministers want to direct universities more than their predecessors, then they need to fund them accordingly. But if Ministers want universities to play to their own self-defined strategies in these fast-changing times, then they should reduce the barriers limiting their capacity to behave more entrepreneurially.
With the UK Government moving to a posture of ‘war fighting readiness’ amid intensifying global conflict, a new HEPI Policy Note warns higher education remains an untapped asset in national preparedness.
The Wartime University: The role of Higher Education in Civil Readiness by Gary Fisher argues UK universities must be recognised as central pillars of national security and resilience. The paper highlights how higher education institutions represent a ‘composite capability’ to enhance and sustain civil readiness, spanning defence, health, skills, logistics and democratic continuity, but warns this potential remains under-recognised and poorly integrated into emergency planning frameworks.
You can read the press release and access the full report here.
Professor Nishan Canagarajah, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leicester, argues it is time for universities to engage their political muscles and shift the narrative.
Professor Canagarajah will join a panel at the Labour Party Conference on ‘What can universities do for you? How “civic universities” are supporting their communities’ on Monday, 29 September 2025 – further details are at https://www.tickettailor.com/events/universityofleicesterpublicaffairs.
An ideological challenge
‘Universities are part of a “crumbling public realm”’. Keir Starmer’s declaration in Brighton last year provided a clarion call for the need to invest in the sector which he argued, like other public services such as the NHS and prisons, had suffered a legacy of chronic underinvestment.
But what is also intrinsic in Starmer’s observation is that universities are losing their place in society. We have lost our voice – drowned out by arguments over the value of a degree, immigration and foreign students, tuition fees and ‘wokeness’. Universities are not seen as being relevant and their wider societal value is often misunderstood. In all the noise around earning a degree – often reduced to a transaction where costs and benefits are weighed – the deeper purpose is frequently lost.
It was famously said by Michael Gove that ‘the people of this country have had enough of experts’ – but perhaps now the time has come for experts in universities to re-enter the stage.
UK universities have always been a cornerstone of national progress. From pioneering life-changing research to nurturing the next generation of leaders, our institutions are woven into the fabric of our society and communities. Now more than ever, we have an opportunity to step forward with confidence to help tackle the pressing, economic, social and health challenges we are facing.
It is time for a new narrative as we engage our political muscles and demonstrate universities are vital to shaping a brighter future for Britain.
From wokeness to winner – how to change the narrative
Four years ago, the Daily Mail headline screamed ‘The University of Woke’ in describing Leicester’s efforts to widen its curriculum. In 2025, Leicester became the Daily Mail University of the Year, described as ‘a model university for the 21st century’ and was shortlisted for both Times Higher Education University of the Year and The Times and Sunday Times University of the Year.
There are lessons to be learnt from Leicester’s journey from pariah to exemplar:
Do not be afraid to do the right thing: Despite the media onslaught, Leicester persevered with its agenda to break down barriers and develop a non-elitist curriculum. Now the University is heralded as a model of inclusivity.
Be bold-stand above the parapet: Universities do not need to shout louder – they need to be heard more. We must regain the ground we have lost historically under attack of being too politically liberal, lacking ideological diversity and over free speech.
Show relevance to society: The disconnect between universities and the public must be tackled. Leicester has joined forces with others to become a part of communities, to engage with them and open its facilities. Our impacts are being brought to the attention not only of the public, but to key stakeholders and to politicians. It is about regaining political and public trust. It is why we are here in Liverpool for the Labour Party Conference.
Rediscover our confidence: From IVF to DNA profiling, the World Wide Web to AI, UK universities have shaped the modern world. At Leicester, we proudly celebrate Sir Alec Jeffreys’s discovery of genetic fingerprinting—not just for its scientific brilliance, but for its enduring inspiration. These discoveries connect with the public. But beyond the headlines are thousands of quieter innovations – new research and policy insights, business support, school outreach, and community partnerships – that improve lives every day. It’s time to shine a light on these contributions and celebrate the sector’s role in building a better Britain.
More than degrees
Universities are not just places of learning – they are engines of innovation, inclusion, and economic growth. Consider the impact:
We contribute over £115 billion to the UK economy annually and support 815,000 jobs.
International students bring a net benefit of £37.4 billion to the UK, enriching our campuses and communities.
Every £1 of public investment in universities yields £14 in economic return.
We train the doctors, nurses, teachers, and public servants who keep our country running.
Our research leads to cleaner energy, smarter cities, and healthier lives.
These contributions are felt in every region, every sector, and every household.
A paradox
Yet today, we face a paradox: a nation that benefits immensely from its universities but often questions their value. The sector is buffeted by direct and indirect policy headwinds – from immigration restrictions and post-study visa curbs to fragmented regional R&D funding and the prospect of an international levy – which according to a new report from the Centre for Cities, Town and gown: The role of universities in city economies will have a greater impact in Leicester than anywhere else in the UK.
The result of this paradox? An untapped potential that we must address head-on.
With the Labour Government more than a year into its term, we have an opportunity to put universities back at the heart of our national conversation – as a positive force for change. But we can’t expect others to make the case for us while we sit back silently and nod sagely. We must roll up our sleeves and demonstrate how we can serve Government priorities.
A solution
With Labour’s five missions – economic growth, opportunity, NHS renewal, clean energy, and safer streets – universities are uniquely placed to help deliver real change. We are not a cost to be managed, but a partner to empower the country.
At Leicester, for example, our Space Park Leicester significantly contributes to the UK government’s priorities for economic growth and clean energy by fostering a collaborative hub for the space sector and leveraging satellite data for environmental solutions. The £100m facility is an innovation hotbed for driving job creation, inward investment and working with industry to develop new technologies which support clean energy transition.
With respect to NHS renewal, we partner with the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust to deliver world-class clinical innovations in areas such as diabetes, ethnic health and respiratory diseases, and secure real change in the city and beyond. We are also diversifying the medical workforce through a ground-breaking Medicine with Foundation Year programme designed as a widening-participation route to attract students from underrepresented backgrounds who have the potential to succeed in medicine.
We are creating opportunities for school-aged children from disadvantaged backgrounds through our IntoUniversity Centre, which supports young people to improve academic attainment, raise aspirations and progress into higher education or other career paths. While helping to ensure safer streets through a strong partnership with police, community engagement and research projects, including the creation of the Policing Academic Centre of Excellence which uses the latest advances in science and technology to solve strategic and operational policing challenges.
Every university in the UK has a similar story to tell with their own impactful examples that help shape a brighter future.
That’s why the University of Leicester, along with university colleagues from across the sector, will be attending this year’s party conferences, to engage constructively with policymakers, share ideas, and build alliances. We believe in collaboration, not confrontation – and in the power of shared purpose.
In a future that is increasingly knowledge intensive and in which our global success will be predicated on our use of technology, AI and big data, universities are central to the UK’s ambitions and future success. It is time for the return of the expert – time for universities to step forward, shape the debate, participate in the national conversation and ensure that universities can continue to drive progress in the way that we have for many centuries.
