Student Loans Company figures show 10% jump in a year as individuals increase borrowing to meet cost of living
Students in England are finishing their degrees with government loans averaging £53,000, a jump of 10% in a year, as they increase their borrowing to meet the rising cost of living.
The Student Loans Company (SLC) has released figures showing individual loan balances were £5,000 higher in 2024-25 than a year earlier, when the average in England was £48,270.
Continue reading...Office for Students guidance urges ‘very strong’ approach to permitting lawful speech on campus
Universities in England will no longer be able to enforce blanket bans on student protests under sweeping new guidance that urges a “very strong” approach to permitting lawful speech on campus.
The detailed regulations set out for the first time how universities should deal with inflammatory disputes, such as those between the University of Cambridge and students over the war in Gaza, and rows over academics who hold controversial but legal opinions, such as the gender-critical professor Kathleen Stock.
The guidance issued by the Office for Students (OfS) will make it harder for universities to penalise students and staff for anything other than unlawful speech or harassment.
Academics should not be pressed to support particular views.
Protests should not be restricted for supporting legal viewpoints.
Students or staff should not be “encouraged to report others” for lawful speech.
Universities must “secure freedom of speech” for visiting speakers.
Continue reading...Students say rise in prices was trigger but underlying anger was communist government’s increasing reliance on USD
Having endured electricity blackouts, water shortages, transport failures and the spiralling cost of food, Cuba’s students appear to have finally lost patience with their government over a ferocious price hike for the country’s faltering internet.
Local chapters of Cuba’s Federation of University Students (FEU) have been calling for a slew of measures, including attendance strikes, explanations from ministers and even the resignation of their own organisation’s president.
Continue reading...Suspension comes as 13m students take four-day gaokao tests for limited spots at country’s universities
Big Chinese tech companies appear to have turned off some AI functions to prevent cheating during the country’s highly competitive university entrance exams.
More than 13.3 million students are sitting the four-day gaokao exams, which began on Saturday and determine if and where students can secure a limited place at university.
Continue reading...Trump administration’s effort to ban foreign enrolment could force students to disrupt their studies and careers
British and international students at Harvard report “growing anxiety” over their fate, as the Trump administration’s latest attack on the university could force them to disrupt their studies and careers.
On Thursday, the administration said it would revoke Harvard University’s eligibility to enrol international students, which was later temporarily frozen by a US federal judge on Friday.
Continue reading...Uinversity students’ mental health and wellbeing must be ‘prioritised alongside their studies’, argue campaigners
A review of student suicides in England dodged “the real issues” with universities, the parents of a student who killed herself before a class presentation have said.
The national review of higher education student suicide deaths, commissioned by the Department for Education, heard that families suffered “distressing experiences” at the hands of university administrators, and concluded that universities owed a “duty of candour” to relatives, including greater transparency and involvement.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Continue reading...UBC and others report spike in interest from US citizens as Trump withholds funds and revokes foreign student visas
More students living in the United States are applying to Canadian universities or expressing interest in studying north of the border as Donald Trump cuts federal funding to universities and revokes foreign student visas.
Officials at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Vancouver campus said the school reported a 27% jump in graduate applications as of 1 March from US citizens for programs starting in the 2025 academic year, compared with all of 2024.
Continue reading...Departures of Cemal Kafadar and Rosie Bsheer are seen by critics as ‘shameful attempt’ by school to appease Trump
The leaders of Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies are leaving their positions after the center faced accusations of anti-Israel bias.
The departures come as the Trump administration scrutinizes institutions who have had pro-Palestine protests over the last year. Earlier this week, Columbia’s president announced she will step down after Trump targeted the university for protests on campus last year.
Continue reading...Vice-chancellor Sasha Roseneil accuses Office for Students of seeking to ‘persecute’ rather than solve problems
The University of Sussex is taking legal action to overturn a record fine levied by England’s higher education regulator, accusing the regulator of seeking to “persecute” it rather than solve problems.
This week the Office for Students (OfS) said it would fine Sussex £585,000 for two “historic” breaches of its regulations related to freedom of speech and governance. It comes after a three-and-a-half-year investigation into the resignation of Prof Kathleen Stock, who was the target of protests at Sussex over her views on gender identification and transgender rights.
Continue reading...Bridget Phillipson instructs Public Sector Fraud Authority to look into whether millions of pounds falsely claimed
Fraud experts will investigate the university loans system amid concerns that students are falsely claiming millions of pounds without intending to study, the education secretary has announced.
Bridget Phillipson has instructed the Public Sector Fraud Authority to coordinate the response to allegations that individuals with no genuine academic intent are enrolling in degree courses to secure loans.
Continue reading...Despite winning a landmark legal battle, academic Alice Jolly believes it won’t benefit others
An academic who won a landmark court battle last year against Oxford University for employing her and her colleague on “sham” gig economy contracts has criticised the university for trying to brush their case under the carpet.
Alice Jolly and her colleague Rebecca Abrams, both award-winning authors, taught on Oxford’s prestigious creative writing course for 15 years but were employed on zero-hours “personal services” contracts, often earning only £23 an hour. After they publicly challenged the university on their lack of employment rights, Oxford wrote to the Society of Authors in April 2022, agreeing to offer the two academics more appropriate contracts.
Continue reading...Research reveals UK institutions educated 50 world leaders in post in 2022, despite job cuts, course closures and a fall in foreign students
Universities in the UK, many of which are in the grip of a financial crisis, “educate more national leaders than any other country in the world”, according to analysis.
Research by Jisc, the UK’s higher education digital, data and technology agency, found UK institutions had educated 50 world leaders who were in post in 2022, with the US in second place with 41, followed by the Russian Federation (14) and France (six).
Continue reading...Poor diet, obesity and inactivity blamed on decline with Norway the only country seeing a rise
Life expectancy improvement is stalling across Europe with England experiencing the biggest slowdown. Experts are blaming this on an alarming mix of poor diet, mass inactivity and soaring obesity.
The average annual growth in life expectancy across the continent fell from 0.23 years between 1990 and 2011 to 0.15 years between 2011 and 2019, according to research published in the Lancet Public Health journal. Of the 20 countries studied, every one apart from Norway saw life expectancy growth fall.
Continue reading...Higher tuition costs have already been ‘wiped out’ by government tax hikes, critics claim
A fall in international students applying for visas risks prolonging the existential threat facing some of England’s universities, sources in higher education say, amid warnings that an increase in tuition fees has already been “wiped out” by the government’s tax rises.
Despite the decision by ministers to increase fees for UK students this year to £9,535 – the first rise in eight years – figures across the universities sector said the financial situation remained dire, with further course closures and redundancies being widely considered.
Continue reading...Warning by vice-chancellor Deborah Prentice comes as ‘Silicon Valley’ planned between Oxford and Cambridge
The University of Cambridge risks “losing unbelievable talent” owing to a drop-off in funding for PhDs, the vice-chancellor has cautioned.
Prof Deborah Prentice, who took over as vice-chancellor in 2023, described PhD students as “the lifeblood” of the university’s research and innovation work, and expressed concern that funding from research councils had “dropped off significantly”.
Continue reading...Union describe reductions as ‘cruel’ as university says it will run out of money without changes
Cardiff University has announced plans to shed 400 academic staff – almost 10% of its total – and cut subjects including nursing, music and modern languages, saying it will run out of money in four years if no changes are made.
Academics, union representatives and students expressed shock and dismay at the scale of the cuts, which were announced at staff meetings at the Russell Group university on Tuesday.
A reduction of academic headcount by about 400 full-time equivalent (7% of total workforce), using compulsory redundancy only if absolutely necessary.
Ceasing subjects and programmes in ancient history, modern languages and translation, music, nursing, and religion and theology.
Increasing student-to-staff ratios across the university.
Bringing “complementary” disciplines together through school mergers. For example, the creation of the school of natural sciences (merging chemistry, Earth sciences and physics) and school of global humanities (merging English, communication and philosophy, Welsh, and remaining elements of history, archaeology and religion and modern languages).
Continue reading...Only 25% of institution’s students are from Scotland, and they are more likely to be from working-class backgrounds
From the first day Shanley Breese started her law degree at the University of Edinburgh, she encountered demeaning comments about her accent. She was told she was hard to understand and was asked to repeat herself in tutorials when she used words from the Scots language.
“It was just a little thing to differentiate us and point it out … It meant that I didn’t participate in my tutorials,” she says.
Continue reading...Move to exclude fossil fuel firms from investment portfolios follows years of campaigning by staff and students
More than three-quarters of UK universities have pledged to exclude fossil fuel companies from their investment portfolios, according to campaigners.
The move, which is part of a wider drive to limit investment in fossil fuels, follows years of campaigning by staff and students across the higher education sector.
Continue reading...Israeli student filed lawsuit after suspension for spraying pro-Palestinian protesters with foul-smelling substance
Columbia University has reached a $395,000 settlement with a student who was suspended in January after spraying student protesters with a foul-smelling substance at one of several campus demonstrations in support of Palestine.
The Israeli student who received the payout had been suspended until May.
Continue reading...Rachel Reeves made funding the NHS a priority but people working in other areas said they were disappointed
Rachel Reeves’s first budget emphasised raising taxes to help the NHS, as the health service tries to cope with huge waiting lists and an ageing population. Funding the NHS was a top priority but people in other sectors – from universities to social care – feel the budget was a missed opportunity to tackle impending crises or introduce desperately needed reforms in their areas.
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