There is growing acceptance that governing boards in English schools and academies should be diverse. Yet progress towards this strategic aim remains slow despite initiatives to address this. We ask whether boards represent their communities and whether they model diverse and ethical leadership as seen in the culture and values of a school or…

This paper presents a descriptive analysis of the impact of tuition fee increases in England on the full-degree mobility of undergraduate students from the European Union. First, we investigated whether the increase in tuition fees reduced the number of EU students in English higher education institutions. Our analysis shows that, on average,…

The last 25 years have seen a dramatic shift in tuition fee policy in England. This paper uses Critical Discourse Analysis to understand the motivations behind policy setting, comparing the pivotal reviews undertaken by Dearing, Browne and Augar. It concludes that four themes may have influenced tuition fee policy making: national politics and…

The purpose of this study is to outline a new approach to the comparative analysis of student finance systems based on social rights, an approach widely applied in other areas of social policy. It focuses on rights codified in national legislation and financed by central governments, and the collection of indicators measuring formal eligibility…

Higher education in England has expanded in most years since the Second World War, moving from an elite system to a mass one where half of school leavers now progress to university. A lasting funding settlement, however, has proved elusive as the generosity of the post-war decades became unviable as the sector expanded. Eventually this led to the…

This document provides information on who is eligible for undergraduate, postgraduate and further education financial support from Student Finance England. It is designed to assist with the interpretation of The Education (Student Support) Regulations 2011 (as amended) (the Regulations) and is for Student Finance England students only.

The 'Higher Education Policy Statement and Reform Consultation' was launched in February 2022 with responses required by May 2022. This online consultation included 16 closed questions, which have been analysed quantitatively, and 29 open text boxes, which have been analysed qualitatively and the frequency of themes summarised quantitatively. The…

England and Wales have a sizeable fee-paying private school sector including well-resourced elite schools conferring considerable advantage on their students. The majority have charitable status, yielding substantial tax breaks. This significant source of funding for the sector has attracted comparatively little attention from educational…

The unexpected advent of a global pandemic and, in the UK, as part of the government response to control the spread of the virus, the closure of schools with just 48 hours' notice, meant many English teachers were faced with entirely new pedagogical, curricular and technological demands. This article reflects on the experiences of five English…

As of September 2012, the undergraduate tuition fee cap at English universities was raised from £3375 to £9000 per annum. This article explores the rationales underpinning prospective students' decision whether or not to apply to higher education following the fee increase, specifically, how this decision is influenced by perceptions of…

The recent global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic created significant challenges for society, not least for education. England went into lockdown in March 2020; following this, A Level exams were cancelled and the Department for Education announced that results were to be determined by teacher-assessed grades. This paper draws upon research…

This article critically examines how undergraduate students in a red brick university in the North of England have experienced the threefold rise in tuition fees since 2012, with particular attention on how they have begun to understand and negotiate the process of indebtedness. Drawing on a corpus of 118 interviews conducted with a group of 40…

This paper presents an exploratory analysis of the funding mechanisms for higher education across sixteen countries which builds upon existing work on educational institutions, educational outcomes, and welfare regimes. We focus upon the current financing dilemma within the Irish higher education system, seeking potential solutions within an…

Academic entrepreneurial behaviours are increasingly a research field paralleling processes of capitalist commodification. We mobilise Baudrillard's concepts to probe a school's strategic communication methods symbolising class neoliberalism, which aspirational parents may experience as a desired habitus of 'distinction'. We suggest their…

Although postgraduate expansion swiftly followed the massification of undergraduate provision, with classed inequalities in access, postgraduate taught (PGT) education has rarely received the same level of scholarly attention as the critical mass of undergraduate research. To address this partial research lacuna, the paper traces 41 biographical…