Universities UK (UUK) was asked to consider issues relevant to the demographic challenge facing the country’s universities.
The UK will undergo demographic changes over the next twenty years. In this context the UUK was asked for its considered advise on how best to take advantage of these changes and how to mitigate the risks that they may pose.
UUK has delivered it’s response to this invitation: UK higher education in 2023: A contribution to the DIUS higher education debate [PDF 138kb] which is now publicly available for you to comment on.
You can join the continuing discussion on the issues and recommendations by posting your views on any aspect of UUK’s report on this blog.
Comments made on this page will be brought to the attention of the respective policy handlers for this issue on a weekly basis.
We look forward to hearing from you.
(Comments posted on this topic earlier in the higher education debate process are still available in the archive for you to consult should you wish.)
The National HMO Lobby is concerned with the impacts of concentrations of houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) on local communities, including student shared houses. The Lobby welcomes the broader approaches to HE proposed in the current debate on its future. The current expansion of HE has led to what has been christened ’studentification’ (by academic research) of local communities. The forthcoming demographic decrease forecast by Universities UK seems likley to lead to ‘de-studentification’. And then subsequent demographic increase suggests the possibility of ‘re-studentification’. The Lobby urges the agencies concerned to recognise the unintended consequences of HE expansion and contraction, and in their debate on the future of HE, to consider measures to alleviate these consequences. The Lobby has outlined its concerns in a paper presented to DIUS, available at
My comments can be found on this blog posting:
http://blogs.talis.com/xiphos/2008/11/18/dius-review-of-he-online-innovation-in-higher-education/.
My principal argument is that a combination of demographic challenges described in the report, straitened economic circumstances which will worsen in the short to medium term imo, and uncompetitive technology all point to a need for a fundamental reimagining of the future of higher education in the UK.
One of the possible responses to declining numbers of students entering higher education is for universities to attempt to widen participation among non-traditional entrants. The report by UUK suggests that increased competition for student numbers, when combined with the decline in number of potential students, will ‘reinforce the motivation of universities to engage with school pupils to encourage them … to see higher education as an option for them’.
At the National Foundation for Educational Research we have been investigating the impact of activities designed to motivate young people to enter higher education for a number of years, and are currently engaged in research related to Aimhigher and widening participation. While we would say that this is a rich research area that warrants further investigation, we would also suggest that exploring these young people’s experience of university is an important part of following up widening participation activities. In the light of higher rates of discontinuation over the past few years this kind of research becomes essential; there is little point in encouraging higher participation rates if retention then becomes an issue.