The nature of higher education in further education colleges is poorly understood, even though it is central to government policies on expansion, diversity and widening participation in English higher education. One reason has to do with scale. Another has to do with complexity. A final reason has to do with their status as further education…

In the expansion and increasingly vocational orientation of English education, Further Education (FE) colleges have played special roles (as have community colleges in the US). FE colleges are conventionally described as the Cinderella of British education--the overlooked beauty who comes to widespread attention because of her courtship by the…