Informed choice? The new English student funding system and widening participation

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Adnett ◽  
Diana Tlupova
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Higher Education Policy ◽  
Current System ◽  
Informed Choice ◽  
Widening Participation ◽  
Funding System ◽  
English System ◽  
Student Finance ◽  
Student Funding

The new English system of student finance seeks to resolve a higher education policy trilemma created by government's desire to switch more of the costs on to students, whilst seeking to promote both increased and widening participation. The rationale for this new funding system is based upon orthodox economic analysis which, the authors argue, rests upon inappropriate assumptions. Survey evidence from recent entrants is presented to support this critique and to question whether the current system can promote both informed student decision-making and widening participation.

The Costs of Widening Participation: Contradictions in New Labour's Student Funding Policies

2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Callender
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Financial Support ◽  
New Labour ◽  
Educational Opportunities ◽  
Widening Participation ◽  
Widening Access ◽  
Funding Policies ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Student Funding

Increasing and widening participation have been at the heart of New Labour's higher education initiatives since they came to power. This article argues that their 1998 reforms of student financial support were inconsistent with their commitment to widening access and fairness in educational opportunities, and their desire for higher education to contribute to greater social cohesion. The article examines this policy contradiction. It explores how the 1998 reforms came about, and the effects of the reforms. It traces briefly the development of student funding policies under the Conservatives, and under New Labour. Next, is assesses New Labour's policies and policy objectives, drawing upon the findings of a major survey on students' income and expenditure. So, it explores some of the effects and consequences, both intended and unintended, of the 1998 reforms.

FROM PROTEGE TO CUSTOMER: INCREASING STUDENT INFLUENCE IN CIVIL AND STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING EDUCATION

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrike Quapp ◽  
Klaus Holschemacher
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Engineering Education ◽  
Higher Education Policy ◽  
Structural Engineering ◽  
Customer Orientation ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Education Institution ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Decision Making Processes

The increasing appearance of fee financed education offers in higher education result in a power shift from higher education institutions in Germany to their students. Thus, for example, students claim more involvement in university decision processes and the right to evaluate lecturers’ teaching skills. This paper is dealing with the development of student rights. It describes the students’ position at universities under higher education policy aspects. A closer look on the rights and duties of students gives an idea of their options to influence civil and structural engineering education. Furthermore, advantages and disadvantages of the increasing influence of students on universities’ decision making processes were examined. That issue is especially discussed under the perspective of the influence on civil and structural engineering education. The conclusion is that an increasing influence of students and customer orientation at universities may influence the working atmosphere at higher education institutions both in a positive as well as in a negative way. Sometimes students have inventive ideas but often they are not able to overview all aspects of university life. Universities must master the balance between the educational standards of a higher education institution and the increasing demands to involve students in institutional decision making processes.

scholarly journals Neoliberal Meritocracy: How 'Widening Participation' to Universities in England Reinforces Class Divisions

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Cunningham ◽  
Colin Samson
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Education Policy ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Higher Education Policy ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Widening Participation ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
The Social ◽  
Class Privilege ◽  
Class Divisions

This essay details the processes through which English universities reinforce existing social class divisions while at the same time extending access for populations that had historically been excluded from universities. Practices commonly referred to within higher education policy as ‘widening participation’ that purport to show solidarity with previously excluded student populations, we argue, function to maintain not diminish inequalities. While the meritocratic ideals underpinning the social mobility narrative of widening participation encourage economic and employment aspirations as prime motivations for applying and entering university, widening participation has not coincided with meaningful mobility. Through an analysis of major shifts in higher education policy, we argue that categorisations of the ‘disadvantaged’ student are manufactured to assist universities to fund and legitimate themselves as vehicles of social mobility. In this context, we argue that a precarious legitimacy exists because social mobility operates within a wider culture of embedded class privilege, and this is constantly managed by state regulatory frameworks which reshape and repurpose universities to fit a neoliberal meritocratic image of the larger society and the role of universities within it. Ideas of ‘disadvantage’ service solidarity not with the ‘disadvantaged’ but with educational service providers, as they offer a target for the promotion of neoliberal meritocracy. In the course of this, class differentials are reinforced by channelling ‘disadvantaged’ and ‘advantaged’ students into different niches of the labour market, preserving existing inequalities, and sorting graduates into winners and losers.

scholarly journals Widening participation to higher education

2018 ◽  
pp. 147-170
Author(s):  
Stephen Gorard
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
School Environment ◽  
Widening Participation ◽  
Prospective Students ◽  
Contextual Data ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Admission Decision ◽  
Positive Discrimination ◽  
Set Up

This chapter focuses on widening participation to undergraduate higher education. It considers when in the ‘pipeline’ to higher education these socio-economic patterns first appear, when are they strongest, what causes them, and what can be done about them. The chapter then considers how this stratification can be overcome by using contextualised admissions (CA), as is ongoing policy in the United Kingdom at the time of writing. Contextualised admissions entails the use by universities of contextual data about prospective students' socio-economic and educational circumstances to inform admission decision-making, usually by reducing the grade requirements for entry where it is clear that an applicant comes from a disadvantaged family, neighbourhood, or school environment. CA policies are therefore a kind of positive discrimination within the current set-up.

Evaluation of the Academic Setting in Spain 1This study was financed by the University of Oviedo.

1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Fernández ◽  
Miguel A. Mateo ◽  
José Muñiz
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Climate ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Academic Setting ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
Evaluation Questionnaire ◽  
University Teachers ◽  
The University

The conditions are investigated in which Spanish university teachers carry out their teaching and research functions. 655 teachers from the University of Oviedo took part in this study by completing the Academic Setting Evaluation Questionnaire (ASEQ). Of the three dimensions assessed in the ASEQ, Satisfaction received the lowest ratings, Social Climate was rated higher, and Relations with students was rated the highest. These results are similar to those found in two studies carried out in the academic years 1986/87 and 1989/90. Their relevance for higher education is twofold because these data can be used as a complement of those obtained by means of students' opinions, and the crossing of both types of data can facilitate decision making in order to improve the quality of the work (teaching and research) of the university institutions.

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