Tag: office

  • The latest sector-wide financial sustainability assessment from the Office for Students

    The latest sector-wide financial sustainability assessment from the Office for Students

    As the higher education sector in England gets deeper into the metaphorical financial woods, the frequency of OfS updates on the sector’s financial position increases apace.

    Today’s financial sustainability bulletin constitutes an update to the regulator’s formal annual assessment of sector financial sustainability published in May 2025. The update takes account of the latest recruitment data and any policy changes that could affect the sector’s financial outlook that would not have been taken into account at the point that providers submitted their financial returns to OfS ahead of the May report.

    Recruitment headlines

    At sector level, UK and international recruitment trends for autumn 2025 entry have shown growth by 3.1 per cent and 6.3 per cent respectively. But this is still lower than the aggregate sector forecasts of 4.1 per cent and 8.6 per cent, which OfS estimates could result in a total sector wide net loss of £437.8m lower than forecast tuition fee income. “Optimism bias” in financial forecasting might have been dialled back in recent years following stiff warnings from OfS, but these figures suggest it’s still very much a factor.

    Growth has also been uneven across the sector, with large research intensive institutions increasing UK undergraduate numbers at a startling 9.9 per cent in 2025 (despite apparently collectively forecasting a modest decline of 1.7 per cent), and pretty much everyone else coming in lower than forecast or taking a hit. Medium-sized institutions win a hat tip for producing the most accurate prediction in UK undergraduate growth – actual growth of 2.3 per cent compared to projected growth of 2.7 per cent.

    The picture shifts slightly when it comes to international recruitment, where larger research-intensives have issued 3.3 per cent fewer Confirmations of Acceptance of Studies (CAS) against a forecasted 6.6 per cent increase, largely driven by reduction in visas issued to students from China. Smaller and specialist institutions by contrast seem to have enjoyed growth well beyond forecast. The individual institutional picture will, of course, vary even more – and it’s worth adding that the data is not perfect, as not every student applies through UCAS.

    Modelling the impact

    OfS has factored in all of the recruitment data it has, and added in new policy announcements, including estimation of the impact of the indexation of undergraduate tuition fees, and increases to employers National Insurance contributions, but not the international levy because nobody knows when that is happening or how it will be calculated. It has then applied its model to providers’ financial outlook.

    The headline makes for sombre reading – across all categories of provider OfS is predicting that if no action were taken, the numbers of providers operating in deficit in 2025–26 would rise from 96 to 124, representing on increase from 35 per cent of the sector to 45 per cent.

    Contrary to the impression given by UK undergraduate recruitment headlines, the negative impact isn’t concentrated in any one part of the sector. OfS modelling suggests that ten larger research-intensive institutions could tip into deficit in 2025–26, up from five that were already forecasting themselves to be in that position. The only category of provider where OfS estimates indicate fewer providers in deficit than forecast is large teaching-intensives.

    The 30 days net liquidity is the number you need to keep an eye on because running out of cash would be much more of a problem than running a deficit for institutional survival. OfS modelling suggests that the numbers reporting net liquidity of under 30 days could rise from 41 to 45 in 2025–26, with overall numbers concentrated in the smaller and specialist/specialist creative groups.

    What it all means

    Before everyone presses the panic button, it’s really important to be aware, as OfS points out, that providers will be well aware of their own recruitment data and the impact on their bottom line, and will have taken what action they can to reduce in-year costs, though nobody should underestimate the ongoing toll those actions will have taken on staff and students.

    Longer term, as always, the outlook appears sunnier, but that’s based on some ongoing optimism in financial forecasting. If, as seems to keep happening, some of that optimism turns out to be misplaced, then the financial struggles of the sector are far from over.

    Against this backdrop, the question remains less about who might collapse in a heap and more about how to manage longer term strategic change to adapt providers’ business models to the environment that higher education providers are operating in. Though government has announced that it wants providers to coordinate, specialise and collaborate, while the sector continues to battle heavy financial weather those aspirations will be difficult to realise, however desirable they might be in principle.

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  • Spanberger urges UVA to pause presidential search until she takes office

    Spanberger urges UVA to pause presidential search until she takes office

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    Dive Brief:

    • Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger is calling on the University of Virginia’s governing board to hold off on naming a new president or selecting finalists for the role until she takes office in January.
    • Over the past six months, UVA’s Board of Visitors has “severely undermined the public’s and the University community’s confidence” in its ability to act transparently and in the best interests of the state flagship, Spanberger said in a Wednesday letter to board leaders.
    • Spanberger, a Democrat and an alumna of UVA, said five appointees to the board “failed to achieve confirmation” by the Virginia Assembly as law requires. That raises concerns about the legitimacy of any decisions made by the current board, as it isn’t “fully constituted,” she argued.

    Dive Insight:

    UVA’s governing board has been in a state of flux since June. Outgoing Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, is in the midst of a fight with Virginia’s Democrat-controlled Senate committee over his selections for several public college boards, including UVA.

    The committee rejected eight of Youngkin’s appointments in June, but the governor instructed them to begin serving anyway. In July, a judge ruled that those eight board appointees for UVA, George Mason University and Virginia Military Institute could not serve on those boards. An appeal from outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares is before the Virginia Supreme Court.

    Democratic lawmakers similarly rejected another round of Youngkin appointees in August, bringing the total number of board seats under contention at Virginia public colleges to nearly two dozen.

    At UVA, five appointees are in legal limbo. 

    Because of this, “the Board is not fully constituted and its composition is now in violation of statutory requirements in crucial respects, further calling into question the legitimacy of the Board and its actions,” Spanberger said in her letter.

    UVA’s board currently has 12 voting members, well above the five it requires for a quorum. The university did not immediately respond to questions Thursday. 

    The governor-elect advised the board to pause its presidential search until it is “at full complement and in statutory compliance,” adding that would entail her appointing new members and the General Assembly approving them.  

    In turn, Spanberger pledged to make her appointments to the UVA board “quickly upon my swearing in.”

    UVA formed a special committee in July to select a new president following the abrupt departure of its former leader, Jim Ryan, less than a month earlier. 

    Ryan, who originally planned to leave the role at the end of the 2025-26 academic year, stepped down early amid reports of a pressure campaign orchestrated against him by the U.S. Department of Justice. The DOJ had been probing UVA’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, which expanded following the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally on the university’s campus and Ryan’s inauguration as president a year later.

    In his resignation announcement, Ryan said he wouldn’t challenge the Trump administration out of concern that attempting to keep his job would cost UVA research funding and student aid, as well as put international students at risk.

    UVA said in November that in-person interviews for Ryan’s replacement would take place late this month.

    Spanberger in her letter Wednesday criticized Ryan’s ouster as “a result of federal overreach” and noted that it went unchallenged by UVA’s board members.

    That lack of response, she argued, among other actions taken by the board over the last six months, has resulted in a “loss of confidence” in the governing body. She cited no confidence votes from both the UVA faculty senate and the university student council in July and August, respectively.

    In October, UVA struck a deal with the DOJ to formally close the agency’s investigations over its DEI work by 2028. In return, the university agreed to several changes, including adopting the DOJ’s contentious anti-DEI guidance and making quarterly compliance reports.

    Because the deal doesn’t include a financial penalty, it did not require a formal vote from the board, the university said in an FAQ.

    Leaders of Virginia’s Democratic-controlled Senate have called for a legal audit of the agreement, questioned its constitutionality and labeled it “a fundamental breach of the governance relationship” between the university and the state.

    Last month, the Trump administration also offered the research university a separate deal — preferential access to federal research funding in exchange for enacting several wide-ranging and unprecedented conditions. UVA ultimately declined the compact, as did six other colleges to which the administration initially offered it.

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  • What’s in the new Office for Students strategy?

    What’s in the new Office for Students strategy?

    The Office for Students began a consultation process on its 2025-30 strategy back in December 2024. Alongside the usual opportunities for written responses there have been a series of “feedback events” promoted specifically to higher education provider staff, FE college staff, and students and student representatives held early in 2025.

    In the past OfS has faced arguably justified criticism for failing to take sector feedback on proposals into account – but we should take heart that there are significant differences between what was originally proposed and what has just been finalised and published.

    Graphic design is our passion

    Most strikingly, we are presented with four new attitudes that we are told will “drive delivery of all our strategic goals in the interest of students” – to hammer the point home individual activities in the “roadmap” are labelled with coloured, hexagonal, markers where “a particular activity will exemplify certain attitudes”. We get:

    • Ambitious for all students from all backgrounds (an upward arrow in a pink hexagon)
    • Collaborative in pursuit of our priorities and in our stewardship of the sector (two stylised hands in the shape of a heart, yellow hexagon)
    • Vigilant about safeguarding public money and student fees (A pound-sign on a teal hexagonal background)
    • Vocal that higher education is a force for good, for individuals, communities and the country (a stylised face and soundwave on a purple hexagon)

    Where things get potentially confusing is that the three broadly unchanged strategic goals – quality (tick, yellow circle), sector resilience (shield, blue circle), student experience and support (someone carrying an iPad, red circle) – are underpinned both by the attitude and the concept of “equality of opportunity” (teal ourobouros arrow). The only change at this conceptual level is that “the wider student interest” is characterised as “experience and support”. Don’t worry – the subsections of these are the same as in the consultations

    Fundamentally, OfS’ design language is giving openness and transparency, with a side order of handholding through what amounts to a little bit of a grab-bag of a list of interventions. The list is pared down from the rather lengthy set of bullet points initially presented, and there are some notable changes.

    Quality

    In the quality section what has been added is an assurance that OfS will do this “in collaboration with students, institutions, and sector experts”, and a commitment to “celebrate and share examples of excellence wherever we find them”. These are of course balanced with the corresponding stick: “Where necessary, we will pursue investigation and enforcement, using the full range of our powers.” This comes alongside clarification that the new quality system would be build on, rather than alongside the TEF.

    What is gone is the Quality Risk Register. An eminently sensible addition to the OfS armoury of risk registers, the vibes from the consultation were that providers were concerned that it might become another arm of regulation rather than a helpful tool for critical reflection

    Also absent from the final strategy is any mention of exploring alignment with European quality standards, which featured in the consultation materials. Similarly, the consultation’s explicit commitment to bring transnational education into the integrated quality model has not been restated – it’s unclear whether this reflects a change in priority or simply different drafting choices.

    Students

    In the section on students, language about consumer rights is significantly softened, with much more on supporting students in understanding their rights and correspondingly less on seeking additional powers to intervene on these issues. Notably absent are the consultation’s specific commitments – the model student contract, plans for case-report publication, and reciprocal intelligence sharing. The roadmap leans heavily into general “empowerment” language rather than concrete regulatory tools. And, for some reason, language on working with the Office for the Independent Adjudicator has disappeared entirely.

    A tweak to language clarifies that OfS are no longer keen to regulate around extra-curricular activity – there will be “non-regulatory” approaches however.

    New here is a commitment to “highlight areas of concern or interest that may not be subject to direct regulation but which students tell us matter to them”. The idea here looks to be that OfS can support institutions to respond proactively working with sector agencies and other partners. It is pleasing to see a commitment to this kind of information sharing (I suspect this is where OIA has ended up) – though a commitment to continue to collect and publish data on the prevalence of sexual misconduct in the draft appears not to have made the final cut.

    Resilience

    The “navigation of an environment of increased financial and strategic risks” has been a key priority of OfS over most of the year since this strategy was published – and what’s welcome here is clearer drafting and a positive commitment to working with providers to improve planning for potential closures, and that OfS will “continue to work with the government to address the gaps in the system that mean that students cannot be adequately protected if their institution can no longer operate”.

    Governance – yes, OfS will not only consider an enhanced focus, it will strengthen its oversight on governance. That’s strategic action right there. Also OfS will “work with government on legislative solutions that would stop the flow of public money when we [OfS, DfE, SLC] have concerns about its intended use.”

    Also scaled back is the consultation’s programmatic approach to governance reform. Where the consultation linked governance capability explicitly to equality and experience outcomes, the final version frames this primarily as assurance and capability support rather than a reform agenda. The shift suggests OfS moving toward a lighter-touch, collaborative posture on governance rather than directive intervention.

    Regulation

    OfS will now “strive to deliver exemplary regulation”, and interestingly the language on data has shifted from securing “modern real-time data” to “embedding the principle collect once, use many times” and a pleasing promise to work with other regulators and agencies to avoid duplication.

    Two other consultation commitments have been quietly downgraded. The explicit language on working with Skills England to develop a shared view of higher education’s role in meeting regional and national skills needs has disappeared – odd given the government’s focus on this agenda. And while the Teaching Excellence Framework remains present, the consultation’s push to make TEF “more routine and more widespread” has been cooled – the final version steps back from any commitments on cadence or coverage.

    What’s missing within the text of the strategy, despite being in the consultation version, are the “I statements” – these are what Debbie McVitty characterised on Wonkhe as:

    intended to describe what achieving its strategic objectives will look and feel like for students, institutions, taxpayers and employers in a clear and accessible way, and are weighted towards students, as the “primary beneficiaries” of the proposed strategy.

    These have been published, but separately and with a few minor revisions. Quite what status they have is unclear:

    The ‘I statements’ are a distillation of our objectives, as set out in our strategy. They are not regulatory tools. We will not track the performance of universities and colleges against them directly.

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  • Trump Gutted ED’s Civil Rights Office. Could States Step Up?

    Trump Gutted ED’s Civil Rights Office. Could States Step Up?

    The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which is supposed to protect students from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, sex, age and disability status, isn’t what it once was.

    The Trump administration laid off nearly half the staff in March, shuttered seven of its 12 regional offices, shifted the hollowed-out agency’s focus to new priorities (including keeping transgender women out of women’s sports) and then reportedly terminated more employees amid the ongoing shutdown.

    Philadelphia was among the cities that lost its OCR regional office in the first round of layoffs. Lindsey Williams, a Pennsylvania state senator who serves as minority chair of the Senate Education Committee, said the region’s cases now go to Atlanta, “where they may or may not be heard.”

    To fill this void, Williams, a Democrat, announced she will file legislation to establish an Office of Civil Rights within the Pennsylvania Department of Education. The bill has yet to be written, but Williams said she wants to “create new authorities for the Pennsylvania Department of Education to investigate and enforce federal civil rights violations.” She noted, “There may be opportunity as well to strengthen our state laws in this regard.”

    “We’re looking at all of it to see what we can do,” she said, “because we haven’t been here before.”

    Students facing discrimination across the country now have far fewer staff in the federal Education Department OCR who can respond to their complaints. The agency had a large backlog of cases even before President Trump retook office, and then it dismissed thousands of complaints in the spring. Some advocates have expressed particular concern about OCR’s current capacity to process complaints of disability discrimination.

    And those left at OCR appear to be applying a conservative interpretation of civil rights law that doesn’t recognize transgender students’ gender identity. The Trump-era OCR has actively targeted institutions for allowing trans women in women’s sports. It’s also focused on ending programs and practices that specifically benefit minorities, to the exclusion of whites.

    Civil rights advocates are calling for states to step up.

    “We cannot stop what is happening at the federal level,” Williams said. “There’s plenty of lawsuits that are trying … but, in the meantime, what do we as a state do?”

    One of those ongoing suits, filed by the Victim Rights Law Center and two parents in April, alleges that shrinking OCR harms students from protected classes. It argues that the federal OCR cuts left “a hollowed-out organization incapable of performing its statutorily mandated functions,” adding that “without judicial intervention, the system will exist in name only.” But that intervention may not work in students’ favor—judges have issued preliminary injunctions, but the Supreme Court has, so far, allowed the Education Department layoffs to continue.

    Shelby Chestnut, executive director of the Transgender Law Center and a Pennsylvania resident, said, “States need to be picking up some of the slack.”

    “If more states with Democratic leaders started to propose such offices or legislation or money, it would likely create a bigger conversation,” Chestnut said.

    He noted that during the Obama administration, the federal government sued North Carolina over its controversial law banning trans people from using bathrooms matching their gender identity. But that’s not something the Trump administration would do. Chestnut said some states are now saying—and more should be saying—“OK, you won’t do your job, so we’ll do your job for you.”

    Beth Gellman-Beer, who was director of the Philadelphia regional office of the federal OCR before the Trump administration laid her off, said she doesn’t know of other states creating a new state-level agency like the one that’s been proposed in Pennsylvania. Even there, Republicans control the state Senate, and the legislation isn’t certain to pass. She said other state legislatures “should be really thinking about this and taking immediate steps to build out some kind of civil rights unit to help students in their state.”

    Some states already have their own agencies that protect civil rights in higher ed, Gellman-Beer said, including the existing Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. But she said these entities “are traditionally severely understaffed and don’t have the resources and relied heavily on OCR.”

    Chad Dion Lassiter, executive director of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, agreed with Gellman-Beer’s assessment of commissions like his. Lassiter said he feels “sheer exuberance” over the proposed legislation—which he said would be even greater if the new Office of Civil Rights were created in his agency.

    “Give us 20 additional staff and we’ll do the work,” Lassiter said. Ideally, 15 would be investigators in his agency’s education division and five would be attorneys, he said.

    “Each state that has a human relations commission should have an educational component,” he said. “Fund these commissions.”

    Gellman-Beer said the only true fix is to restore a federal OCR—because even if some states do step up, students’ rights will be contingent on where they live.

    “It used to be, under the model prior to this administration, that the promise for equal educational opportunity was across the board,” she said.

    Unequal Rights Across States

    For a student going before a state-level OCR in a state that doesn’t recognize their identity, the process could be as fruitless as seeking help from the Trump-era federal OCR. The Movement Advancement Project, which advocates for LGBTQ+ rights, says 27 states have laws banning trans students from participating in sports matching their gender identity. Such laws don’t all affect postsecondary students, but they often do, the organization said.

    Nicholas Hite, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal, which advocates for LGBTQ+ people in court, said the federal OCR was supposed to provide a single, consistent application of federal legal protections. Now, he said, “that just isn’t happening—they’re just refusing to do it.”

    “If we’re relying on states to be the enforcement mechanism, we’ve created this patchwork where each state is going to take their own approach,” Hite said.

    Universities in states with laws recognizing trans students’ rights have to decide whether to comply with those laws or with the Trump administration’s approach. The administration, using massive cuts to federal research funding, forced concessions from the University of Pennsylvania for allowing a trans woman to compete in women’s sports. But Scott Lewis—a co-founder of the Association of Title IX Administrators and managing partner of TNG Consulting, which advises higher ed institutions on civil rights issues—said so far he’s seen blue-state universities handling discrimination complaints like they did before Trump retook office.

    Lassiter, of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, said, “It’s important for people to know you still have protections under the state.” But protections for trans students can be unclear.

    His agency enforces state laws protecting students against discrimination based on gender identity, but wouldn’t directly answer whether that means it would order a university to allow a trans woman to play on a woman’s sports team. Lassiter said his agency avoids “cultural wars.”

    Students facing discrimination of all sorts can still sue under federal civil rights law in lieu of seeking help from the federal OCR or any state version of that agency. But personal lawsuits can be expensive.

    Williams, the Pennsylvania state senator, noted that lawsuits may also not wrap up by the time a student graduates. Gellman-Beer, the former federal OCR employee, said they also often lead to individual remedies for a victim, rather than “systemic interventions to make sure that the problem doesn’t occur again for other students.” That was the kind of broad solution the federal OCR could achieve, she said.

    Hite welcomed people whose rights are being infringed, or who are concerned about others’ rights, to reach out to Lambda Legal. He noted the federal OCR did much of its work through negotiating with universities to fix issues, rather than pursuing litigation. If the federal OCR is no longer doing these negotiations, the burden is placed on students and parents to sue to uphold their own rights—while an added cost of litigation is also placed on universities, he said.

    Lewis said that if the Trump administration continues its trajectory, people who don’t feel they’re being served at the federal level will go to the state level.

    “If the federal government won’t do it,” he said, “the states are going to be left to do it.”

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  • Universities as infrastructures of support: making the Solent Film Office happen

    Universities as infrastructures of support: making the Solent Film Office happen

    UK universities are under mounting financial pressure. Join HEPI and King’s College London Policy Institute today at 1pm for a webinar on how universities balance relatively stable but underfunded income streams against higher-margin but volatile sources. Register now. We look forward to seeing you there.

    This blog was kindly authored by Dr Roy Hanney, Associate Professor at Southampton Solent University.

    The launch of the new Solent and South Hampshire Regional Film Office marks a major step forward for the region’s creative economy. Funded by Solent Growth Partners and driven by a consortium of local authorities and cultural development agencies, the film office will provide a single point of contact for productions, market the region as a go-to location for filming and open up new opportunities for local businesses and talent.

    Behind the scenes of this development is a quieter story – one of research, knowledge exchange, and the often-unseen role universities play in helping ideas like this one take root and grow.

    From research to impact

    The idea of a regional film office did not emerge overnight. It was first identified in research carried out at Southampton Solent University as part of a Research, Innovation and Knowledge Exchange (RIKE) project between 2020 and 2021. It was a response to priorities set out in key strategy documents – including the Creative Network South Creative Industries Declaration and Arts Council England’s cultural strategy for Portsmouth – both of which highlighted the need for stronger infrastructure to support the creative economy.

    The RIKE project gathered evidence, brought together stakeholders, and produced a Theory of Change report for the screen industries in the Solent region. Among its recommendations was the establishment of a regional film office – not simply as an administrative function, but as a vital piece of creative infrastructure: connecting talent pipelines, supporting independent productions, promoting the region internationally, and providing a business case for sustained investment.

    This research provided the evidential basis for further strategic conversations through a series of Screen Industries Cluster meetings hosted in partnership with Fareham College, Creative Network South, and the Southern Policy Centre. These gatherings brought local authorities, policymakers, production companies, and cultural organisations into the same room to test ideas, compare models, and make informed decisions about what would help build our region’s creative economy.

    By December 2024, the Solent Screen Support Feasibility Study was launched, presenting a collaborative roadmap for a film office and confirming broad support across councils, cultural agencies, and regional development bodies.

    The enabling role of universities

    Universities are anchor institutions and, at every stage of this journey, Southampton Solent University played an important role of enablement. It’s often unseen, but it’s by no means any less key. And, by supporting my involvement in this project as part of my research and knowledge exchange remit, the University has created the conditions for academic insight to inform policy and practice.

    This is a subtle but essential contribution. Universities are uniquely placed to:

    • Provide research-led evidence that turns ideas into persuasive business cases.
    • Convene cross-sector conversations by offering neutral space and credibility.
    • Sustain continuity across the long timelines of public sector change.
    • Support thought leadership by connecting academic expertise with industry needs.

    The Solent Film Office is not a “university project” — it is a collaborative achievement led by local authorities and funded by Solent Growth Partners. Yet, it is also fair to say that without the groundwork of university research and facilitation, the momentum to make it happen may not have been sustained.

    A shared regional asset

    With FilmFixer now appointed to establish and operate the new agency, the Solent Film Office is set to work across nine local authority areas, providing a one-stop shop for production companies, marketing the region as a filming destination, and unlocking opportunities for skills development and local business engagement.

    For our university, the benefits are many and varied. Students will have access to an industry landscape that is better coordinated and more visible. Academics can continue to collaborate with policymakers and industry to shape sustainable growth. As a region, we stand to capture a greater share of the economic and cultural value generated by film and television production.

    Regional development? Universities are key

    The story of the Solent Film Office illustrates something bigger about the role of universities in regional development. Universities are not only educators and research producers. They are also infrastructures of support: institutions that provide the long-term stability, intellectual resources, and convening power necessary to get important initiatives off the ground.

    Infrastructures are rarely noticed until they are missing. In this case, the research, networks, and continuity provided by Solent have been crucial in helping partners move from strategy documents to a real, funded institution. The film office will stand as a visible achievement, and Solent’s contribution has been embedded in the process that made it possible.

    The success of the Solent Film Office reminds us that universities are not just ivory towers, but anchor institutions embedded in place. They provide the connective tissue that enables ideas to become reality. Sometimes, that makes all the difference.

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  • From the Classroom to the Career Office: Why Career Readiness Belongs in Every Discipline – Faculty Focus

    From the Classroom to the Career Office: Why Career Readiness Belongs in Every Discipline – Faculty Focus

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  • From the Classroom to the Career Office: Why Career Readiness Belongs in Every Discipline – Faculty Focus

    From the Classroom to the Career Office: Why Career Readiness Belongs in Every Discipline – Faculty Focus

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  • The Office for Students steps on to shaky ground in an attempt to regulate academic standards

    The Office for Students steps on to shaky ground in an attempt to regulate academic standards

    The funny thing about the story about today’s intervention by the Office for Students is that it is not really about grade inflation, or degree algorithms.

    I mean, it is on one level: we get three investigation reports on providers related to registration condition B4, and an accompanying “lessons learned” report that focuses on degree algorithms.

    But the central question is about academic standards – how they are upheld, and what role an arm of the government has in upholding them.

    And it is about whether OfS has the ability to state that three providers are at “increased risk” of breaching a condition of registration on the scant evidence of grade inflation presented.

    And it is certainly about whether OfS is actually able to dictate (or even strongly hint at its revealed preferences on) the way degrees are awarded at individual providers, or the way academic standards are upheld.

    If you are looking for the rule book

    Paragraph 335N(b) of the OfS Regulatory Framework is the sum total of the advice it has offered before today to the sector on degree algorithms.

    The design of the calculations that take in a collection of module marks (each assessed carefully against criteria set out in the module handbook, and cross-checked against the understanding of what expectations of students should be offered by an academic from another university) into an award of a degree at a given classification is a potential area of concern:

    where a provider has changed its degree classification algorithm, or other aspects of its academic regulations, such that students are likely to receive a higher classification than previous students without an increase in their level of achievement.

    These circumstances could potentially be a breach of condition of registration B4, which relates to “Assessment and Awards” – specifically condition B4.2(c), which requires that:

    academic regulations are designed to ensure that relevant awards are credible;

    Or B4.2(e), which requires that:

    relevant awards granted to students are credible at the point of being granted and when compared to those granted previously

    The current version of condition B4 came into force in May 2022.

    In the mighty list of things that OfS needs to have regard to that we know and love (section 2 of the 2017 Higher Education and Research Act), we learn that OfS has to pay mind to “the need to protect the institutional autonomy of English higher education providers” – and, in the way it regulates that it should be:

    Transparent, accountable, proportionate, and consistent and […] targeted only at cases where action is needed

    Mutant algorithms

    With all this in mind, we look at the way the regulator has acted on this latest intervention on grade inflation.

    Historically the approach has been one of assessing “unexplained” (even once, horrifyingly, “unwarranted”) good honours (1 or 2:1) degrees. There’s much more elsewhere on Wonkhe, but in essence OfS came up with its own algorithm – taking into account the degrees awarded in 2010-11 and the varying proportions students in given subject areas, with given A levels and of a given age – that starts from the position that non-traditional students shouldn’t be getting as many good grades as their (three good A level straight from school) peers, and if they did then this was potentially evidence of a problem.

    To quote from annex B (“statistical modelling”) of last year’s release:

    “We interact subject of study, entry qualifications and age with year of graduation to account for changes in awarding […] our model allows us to statistically predict the proportion of graduates awarded a first or an upper second class degree, or a first class degree, accounting for the effects of these explanatory variables.

    When I wrote this up last year I did a plot of the impact each of these variables is expected to have on – the fixed effect coefficient estimates show the increase (or decrease) in the likelihood of a person getting a first or upper second class degree.

    [Full screen]

    One is tempted to wonder whether the bit of OfS that deals with this issue ever speaks to the bit that is determined to drive out awarding gaps based on socio-economic background (which, as we know, very closely correlates with A level results). This is certainly one way of explaining why – if you look at the raw numbers – the people who award more first class and 2:1 degrees are the Russell Group, and at small selective specialist providers.

    [Full screen]

    Based on this model (which for 2023-24 failed to accurately predict fully fifty per cent of the grades awarded) OfS selected – back in 2022(!) – three providers where it felt that the “unexplained” awards had risen surprisingly quickly over a single year.

    What OfS found (and didn’t find)

    Teesside University was not found to have ever been in breach of condition B4 – OfS was unable to identify statistically significant differences in the proportion of “good” honours awarded to a single cohort of students if it applied each of the three algorithms Teesside has used over the past decade or so. There has been – we can unequivocally say – no evidence of artificial grade inflation at Teesside University.

    St Mary’s University, Twickenham and the University of West London were found to have historically been in breach of condition B4. The St Mary’s issue related to an approach that was introduced in 2016-17 and was replaced in 2021-22, in West London the offending practice was introduced in 2015-16 and replaced in 2021-22. In both cases, the replacement was made because of an identified risk of grade inflation. And for each provider a small number of students may have had their final award calculated using the old approach since 2021-22, based on a need to not arbitrarily change an approach that students had already been told about.

    To be clear – there is no evidence that either university has breached condition B4 (not least because condition B4 came into force after the offending algorithms had been replaced). In each instance the provider in question has made changes based on the evidence it has seen that an aspect of the algorithm is not having the desired effect, exactly the way in which assurance processes should (and generally do) work.

    Despite none of the providers in question currently being in breach of B4 all three are now judged to be at an increased risk of breaching condition B4.

    No evidence has been provided as to why these three particular institutions are at an “increased risk” of a breach while others who may use substantially identical approaches to calculating final degree awards (but have not been lucky enough to undergo an OfS inspection on grade inflation) are not. Each is required to conduct a “calibration exercise” – basically a review of their approach to awarding undergraduate degrees of the sort each has already completed (and made changes based on) in recent years.

    Vibes-based regulation

    Alongside these three combined investigation/regulatory decision publications comes a report on Batchelors’ degree classification algorithms. This purports to set out the “lessons learned” from the three reports, but it actually sets up what amounts to a revision to condition B4.

    We recognise that we have not previously published our views relating to the use of algorithms in the awarding of degrees. We look forward to positive engagement with the sector about the contents of this report. Once the providers we have investigated have completed the actions they have agreed to undertake, we may update it to reflect the findings from those exercises.

    The important word here is “views”. OfS expresses some views on the design of degree algorithms, but it is not the first to do so and there are other equally valid views held by professional bodies, providers, and others – there is a live debate and a substantial academic literature on the topic. Academia is the natural home of this kind of exchange of views, and in the crucible of scholarly debate evidence and logical consistency are winning moves. Having looked at every algorithm he could find, Jim Dickinson covers the debates over algorithm characteristics elsewhere on the site.

    It does feel like these might be views expressed ahead of a change to condition B4 – something that OfS does have the power to do, but would most likely (in terms of good regulatory practice, and the sensitive nature of work related to academic standards managed elsewhere in the UK by providers themselves) be subject to a full consultation. OfS is suggesting that it is likely to find certain practices incompatible with the current B4 requirements – something which amounts to a de facto change in the rules even if it has been done under the guise of guidance.

    Providers are reminded that (as they are already expected to do) they must monitor the accuracy and reliability of current and future degree algorithms – and there is a new reportable event: providers need to tell OfS if they change their algorithm that may result in an increase of “good” honours degrees awarded.

    And – this is the kicker – when they do make these changes, the external calibration they do cannot relate to external examiner judgements. The belief here is that external examiners only ever work at a module level, and don’t have a view over an entire course.

    There is even a caveat – a provider might ask a current or former external examiner to take an external look at their algorithm in a calibration exercise, but the provider shouldn’t rely solely on their views as a “fresh perspective” is needed. This reads back to that rather confusing section of the recent white paper about “assessing the merits of the sector continuing to use the external examiner system” while apparently ignoring the bit around “building the evidence base” and “seeking employers views”.

    Academic judgement

    Historically, all this has been a matter for the sector – academic standards in the UK’s world-leading higher education sector have been set and maintained by academics. As long ago as 2019 the UK Standing Committee for Quality Assessment (now known as the Quality Council for UK Higher Education) published a Statement of Intent on fairness in degree classification.

    It is short, clear and to the point: as was then the fashion in quality assurance circles. Right now we are concerned with paragraph b, which commits providers to protecting the value of their degrees by:

    reviewing and explaining how their process for calculating final classifications, fully reflect student attainment against learning criteria, protect the integrity of classification boundary conventions, and maintain comparability of qualifications in the sector and over time

    That’s pretty uncontroversial, as is the recommended implementation pathway in England: a published “degree outcomes statement” articulating the results of an internal institutional review.

    The idea was that these statements would show the kind of quantitative trends that OfS get interested in, some assurance that these institutional assessment processes meet the reference points, and reflect the expertise and experience of external examiners, and provide a clear and publicly accessible rationale for the degree algorithm. As Jim sets out elsewhere, in the main this has happened – though it hasn’t been an unqualified success.

    To be continued

    The release of this documentation prompts a number of questions, both on the specifics of what is being done and more widely on the way in which this approach does (or does not) constitute good regulatory practice.

    It is fair to ask, for instance, whether OfS has the power to decide that it has concerns about particular degree awarding practices, even where it is unable to point to evidence that these practices are currently having a significant impact on degrees awarded, and to promote a de facto change in interpretation of regulation that will discourage their use.

    Likewise, it seems problematic that OfS believes it has the power to declare that the three providers it investigated are at risk of breaching a condition of registration because they have an approach to awarding degrees that it has decided that it doesn’t like.

    It is concerning that these three providers have been announced as being at higher risk of a breach when other providers with similar practices have not. It is worth asking whether this outcome meets the criteria for transparent, accountable, proportionate, and consistent regulatory practice – and whether it represents action being targeted only at cases where it is demonstrably needed.

    More widely, the power to determine or limit the role and purpose of external examiners in upholding academic standards has not historically been one held by a regulator acting on behalf of the government. The external examiner system is a “sector recognised standard” (in the traditional sense) and generally commands the confidence of registered higher education providers. And it is clearly a matter of institutional autonomy – remember in HERA OfS needs to “have regard to” institutional autonomy over assessment, and it is difficult to square this intervention with that duty.

    And there is the worry about the value and impact of sector consultation – an issue picked up in the Industry and Regulators Committee review of OfS. Should a regulator really be initiating a “dialogue with the sector” when its preferences on the external examiner system are already so clearly stated? And it isn’t just the sector – a consultation needs to ensure that the the views of employers (and other stakeholders, including professional bodies) are reflected in whatever becomes the final decision.

    Much of this may become clear over time – there is surely more to follow in the wider overhaul of assurance, quality, and standards regulation that was heralded in the post-16 white paper. A full consultation will help centre the views of employers, course leaders, graduates, and professional bodies – and the parallel work on bringing the OfS quality functions back into alignment with international standards will clearly also have an impact.

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  • Trump’s Latest Layoffs Gut the Office of Postsecondary Ed

    Trump’s Latest Layoffs Gut the Office of Postsecondary Ed

    The Department of Education’s second round of layoffs affected nearly 500 employees and left several offices with a few or no staffers.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Tierney L. Cross/Getty Images | Matveev_Aleksandr/iStock/Getty Images

    Education Secretary Linda McMahon has essentially gutted the postsecondary student services division of her department, leaving TRIO grant recipients and leaders of other college preparation programs with no one to turn to.

    Prior to the latest round of layoffs, executed on Friday and now paused by a federal judge, the Student Services division in the Office of Postsecondary Education had about 40 staffers, one former OPE employee told Inside Higher Ed. Now, he and others say it’s down to just two or three.

    The consequence, college-access advocates say, is that institutions might not be able to offer the same level of support to thousands of low-income and first-generation prospective students.

    “It’s enormously disruptive to the students who are reliant on these services to answer questions and get the information they need about college enrollment and financial aid as they apply and student supports once they enroll,” said Antoinette Flores, a former department official during the Biden administration who now works at New America, a left-leaning think tank. “This [reduction in force] puts all of those services at stake.”

    The layoffs are another blow to the federal TRIO programs, which help underrepresented and low-income students get to and through college. President Trump unsuccessfully proposed defunding the programs earlier this year, and the administration has canceled dozens of TRIO grants. Now, those that did get funding likely will have a difficult time connecting with the department for guidance.

    In a statement Wednesday, McMahon described the government shutdown and the RIF as an opportunity for agencies to “evaluate what federal responsibilities are truly critical for the American people.”

    “Two weeks in, millions of American students are still going to school, teachers are getting paid and schools are operating as normal. It confirms what the president has said: the federal Department of Education is unnecessary,” she wrote on social media.

    This is the second round of layoffs at the Education Department since Trump took office. The first, which took place in March, slashed the department’s staff nearly in half, from about 4,200 to just over 2,400, affecting almost every realm of the agency, including Student Services and the Office of Federal Student Aid.

    Nearly 500 employees lost their jobs in this most recent round, which the administration blamed on the government shutdown that began Oct. 1. No employees in FSA were affected, but the Office of Postsecondary Education was hit hard.

    Jason Cottrell, a former data coordinator for OPE who worked in student and institution services for more than nine years, lost his job in March but stayed in close contact with his colleagues who remained. The majority of them were let go on Friday, leaving just the senior directors and a few front-office administrators for each of the two divisions. That’s down from about 60 employees total in September and about 100 at the beginning of the year, he said.

    At the beginning of the year, OPE included five offices but now is down to the Office of Policy, Planning and Innovation, which includes oversight of accreditation, and the group working to update new policies and regulations.

    Cottrell said the layoffs at OPE will leave grantees who relied on these officers for guidance without a clear point of contact at the department. Further, he said there won’t be nonpartisan staffers to oversee how taxpayer dollars are spent.

    “Long-term, I’m thinking about the next round of grant applications that are going to be coming in … some of [the grant programs] receive 1,100 to 1,200 applications,” he explained. “Who is going to be there to actually organize and set up those grant-application processes to ensure that the regulations and statutes are being followed accurately?”

    Flores has similar concerns.

    “These [cuts] are the staff within the department that provide funding and technical assistance to institutions that are underresourced and serve some of the most vulnerable students within the higher education system,” she said. “Going forward, it creates uncertainty about funding, and these are institutions that are heavily reliant on funding.”

    Other parts of the department affected by the layoffs include the Offices of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, Communications and Outreach, Formula Grants, and Program and Grantee Support Services.

    Although the remaining TRIO programs and other grant recipients that report to OPE likely already received a large chunk of their funding for the year, Cottrell noted that they often have to check in with their grant officer throughout the year to access the remainder of the award. Without those staff members in place, colleges could have a difficult time taking full advantage of their grants.

    “It’s going to harm the institutions, and most importantly, it’s going to harm the students who are supposed to be beneficiaries of these programs,” he said. “These programs are really reserved for underresourced institutions and underserved students. When I look at the overall picture of what has been happening at the department and across higher education, I see this as a strategic use of an opportunity that this administration has created.”

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  • RIFs rip through federal Office of Special Education Programs

    RIFs rip through federal Office of Special Education Programs

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    During this tumultuous year at the U.S. Department of Education that saw about half of the 4,133 employees leave due to layoffs, buyouts and early retirements, the staff at the Office of Special Education Programs stayed mostly stable.

    That changed on Friday, however, when the Trump administration issued reduction-in-force notices across the federal government, including at the Education Department. Court filings show that 466 employees at the Education Department were impacted and several special education association leaders say most of the OSEP staff was laid off. 

    On Friday, the department’s press office confirmed that the RIFs affected staff at the Education Department but did not provide more details. 

    The National Association of State Directors of Special Education, in a statement on Sunday, said informal reports that NASDSE believes to be true indicate that only the two most senior staff remain in OSEP and just one staff member remains in the Rehabilitation Services Administration. Both offices are part of the Education Department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.

    NASDSE said it was “confused and concerned” by the staffing changes, adding that the Education Department under the Trump administration has repeatedly said it supports federal funding and implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and special education for children with disabilities.

    “These RIFs, if true, will make it impossible for the Department to fulfill those responsibilities,” the NASDSE statement said. “There is significant risk that not only will Federal funding lapse, but children with disabilities will be deprived” of a free, appropriate public education.

    Like NASDSE, several other organizations in the special education field wondered how the Education Department would support special education services across the country with such a limited staff.

    “The rumored near elimination of the Office for Special Education Programs is absolutely devastating to the education of people with disabilities,” said Chad Rummel, executive director of the Council for Exceptional Children, in an email on Saturday.

    Rummel said OSEP’s oversight, technical assistance and accountability efforts are critical to supporting the implementation of IDEA, which celebrates its 50th anniversary next month. About 8.4 million infants, toddlers, children and young adults received services under IDEA in 2023.

    “Eliminating federal capacity to support IDEA is harmful to people with disabilities, their families, and the professionals who serve them, and it runs counter to everything our members work toward every day,” he said.

    Myrna Mandlawitz, policy and legislative consultant for the Council of Administrators of Special Education, said on Sunday that the OSEP staff reductions will put an “extreme burden on states and locals that are already really stretched.”

    IDEA, Mandlawitz noted, is implemented collectively by local, state and federal agencies. The federal staff reductions take away “one very vital piece of the partnership. It’s just hard to understand how it can possibly function,” she said.

    Promises to protect special education

    The RIFs came two weeks into the federal government shutdown that began Oct. 1 as Congress remains at a funding impasse for fiscal year 2026. During the shutdown, the Education Department planned to furlough about 95% of its non-Federal Student Aid staff for the first week, according to a Sept. 28 memo from U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon.

    Federal staff are not paid during a government shutdown, but typically receive retroactive compensation. However, there are reports that the Trump administration may try to withhold back pay for this current shutdown, according to the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing over 820,000 workers in nearly every agency of the federal government.

    McMahon said in the memo that school systems could still draw down federal grants awarded over the summer and processing would continue for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Title I and IDEA grants would be distributed as well.

    However, the agency is pausing Office for Civil Rights investigations, new grant-making activities and technical assistance support during the shutdown.

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