David Kernohan

Whatever happened to the New Universities Challenge? Seventeen years after its hopeful launch, Southend’s university campus is closing. Jim Dickinson examines what this tells us about the failure of place-based planning in UK higher education

This week on Wonkhe: Seventeen years after its hopeful launch, Southend’s university campus is closing. Jim Dickinson examines what this tells us about the failure of place-based planning in UK higher education

So why launch an OfS investigation in December? I get that you might not want to get in the way of what sounds like very serious police activity, but as that work is still under way, why is December a good time to launch one when March or May was not?

Police investigations into stuff like this take time. It is very difficult to collect up enough evidence to be sure what happened and what did not. It would require specialist knowledge about running universities to do it well. The police has been talking directly to OfS already.

I mean, I get that there is due process to follow, but surely the point at which a provider suspends three senior figures including the VC because the police is investigating it for suspected fraud and bribery is the point at which you pretty much have to step in? And that point was in May.

Big question for me on this is why has it taken OfS so long to open a formal investigation?@manchestermill.bsky.social made the allegations in March, and the police started their investigation in May and intensified it in July? www.officeforstudents.org.uk/news-blog-an...

Charts, innit?
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Love this on part time work and creative graduates.

UCU pay ballot fails to meet threshold No industrial action expected from UCU on the 2025-26 New Jnches pay round

Hearing that EIS-ULA also failed to meet the statutory 50 per cent threshold.

Writing up the results here: wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/...

UCU ballot on industrial action over pay and pay-related: turnout 39%, meaning there will be no national industrial action on these issues by UCU.

Still waiting for Unison and EIS-ULA results.

NEW on Wonkhe: The UK Standard Skills Classification is a new way to think about the connections between courses and jobs. David Kernohan loves a new coding framework buff.ly/nVlSlHr

NEW on Wonkhe: How can you get a maintenance loan and not a fee loan? buff.ly/p5uwLAb

Budget 2025 for universities and students Team Wonkhe unpacks an unusually consequential Budget for higher education, as a complex mix of fee rises, international student levies, and stealth costs for graduates reshape the sector’s financial ...

Here we go: wonkhe.com/blogs/budget...

NEW on Wonkhe: Ahead of an evidence paper and call for submissions, Minister for Further and Higher Education Vikki Howells sets out her understanding of the key challenges faced by higher education in Wales buff.ly/gbquzUM

I feel like this could be done with more detail: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoria...

Are level 6 apprenticeships next? Universities and employers are concerned enough about further defunding to write to ministers

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especially when aircraft start turning right to go round the M25 to Gatwick, or left to Stansted.

A roundabout would be cheaper.

Government would protect interests of "students, taxpayers, and research" in provider insolvency And the committee seems to think there is one on the way before 2026.

Commons Education Committee seems to think that there is a provider at risk of collapse before the end of 2025. DfE and OfS disagree.

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Yeah - I'd love to move the debate away from the current job advert sticker price reckons that define broadsheet coverage. Hourly pay is a much better indicator of earning power.

Can there ever be a definitive graduate premium? With the pressures of the current loan repayment system, it feels like the graduate premium has never been more central to higher education policymaking - or more difficult to accurately estimate. Dav...

I did a thing for Wonkhe in which I kind of make an argument not to scrap the graduate labour market survey. wonkhe.com/blogs/can-th...

There is a live consultation on this that ends on 1 December. If you are convinced by my argument that we need hourly earnings data please do drop DfE a note.

NEW on Wonkhe: New Skills England guidance provides the detail for the white paper’s vision of a coherent skills system. Michael Salmon assesses whether it could work buff.ly/Dtpbg0t

Yep, why not score a goal from your own half in the 98th minute?

Nicely done Chris.

NEW on Wonkhe: It's taken eleven months, but the draft OfS strategy is now finalised. David Kernohan takes a look at what has changed buff.ly/K1ccOB7

Great piece - understands policy context and asks the right questions about what that means for the university and the city.

Happy The Festival of Higher Education day for those who celebrate!

If you are joining us in London, may I modestly suggest sessions on a single data model, and on green skills, will be the sessions all the cool kids will be at.

NEW on Wonkhe: Plymouth is once again entering an era of defence-driven growth. Richard Davies asks how the university fits in buff.ly/dDLRkUZ

Honestly without reworking the analysis I don't know. But generally cost centre data comes split up by spending line (academic, other staff, other operating expenses) not by function (teaching, research...). The only place you'd get the latter would be in the bits of TRAC that never get published.

Looks like expenditure by Cost Centre and Student FTE by Cost Centre from the HESA Finance collection (I'd guess the SFC comparator for each price group is from a publication by the funding body).

It's going to be indicative at best.

This honestly is a dream come true for me.