Higher Education – A Unique Success Story the Successes, the Challenges and Threats, and the

Opportunities

Bill Rammell Deputy Vice-Chancellor

Plymouth University

Poacher Turned Game Keeper

• Insights from both sides of the fence

• Universities – strong voice

• Friends in high places

• Need for consistency and proportion

• Unique UK success story

HE Development in Perspective – the Last Decade • Introduction of variable fees

• Foundation degree awarding powers

• PMI

• Stability

• Student voice

• Greater scrutiny of Universities

Challenges Facing the HE Sector Today

• Cuts in funding – a deficit model even at £9,000

• Radical change to student number allocation

• Fees potentially forced below £7,500

• Increasing power of the student consumer

• Quality academic support demanded

• Challenge of private providers

• Demand for high level skills in the work place

• Internationalisation

Sustainability of New Fees Regime?

• Significant implications for the Treasury due to the increased threshold

for graduates to repay their student loan:

⁻ In 30 years’ time the UK Government is likely to have to write off

debt of between £30,649 and £64,935 for every full-time

university student who graduates in 2015

⁻ The report estimates that the recurrent annual liability to the

Government of the current fees regime is approximately £9bn

• Policy shift from Widening Participation to Fair Access

• New fees regime unlikely to change

‘First Steps to Wealth’ - Skandia

University-level skills are Vital

• ‘Graduate premium’ at nearly £600,000

• Graduate vacancies continue to grow

• Jobs in ‘graduate dense’ occupations are an increasing

proportion of the total workforce

• Graduate employment rates have been maintained despite

the rapid expansion in the number of graduates

‘First Steps to Wealth’ – Skandia. ‘The Way We Work’ – University Alliance

Core and Margin

• The core and margin redistributes students:

1. Based on price (Fees)

2. Based on grade profile of the student (AAB)

• Institutions can offer unlimited places to AAB

• 9% of student numbers will be taken from those institutions

charging £6k or more fees and redistributed to private providers

and those charging low fees

• Core and margin, and AAB unlikely to change for 13/14

To survive Institutions need to be:

• Bold

• Confident

• Different

• Distinctive

• Agile

The Student Experience • KIS

• NSS

• Entrepreneurship and Innovation

• Employability

• Internationalisation

• Leadership Skills

• Work experience, through placements, volunteering

and part time jobs

• Students as Partners

• Three strands:

– Curriculum

– Co-curriculum

– Extra-curriculum

• Extra-curricular award schemes

• Students as Leaders

• Volunteering and work experience

• US campus jobs model?

Employability Agenda

Internationalisation – the Challenges

Reasons for optimism about growth in international student mobility:

• Concentration of world population in developing countries with rising birth-rates, an increasing demand for education in these countries, and limited domestic capacity to provide education

• Development of the global economy and associated emergence of China, India and other Asian countries as major economic powers

• Untapped growth potential of mobility below tertiary level

Source: “Who Goes Where and Why?” Macready /Tucker

Reasons for caution about growth in international student mobility:

• Concerns over “brain drain” have driven sending countries to build up their own tertiary systems

• Rapid growth in transnational education means students can get at least some international education benefits without leaving home

• Early signs from a few key countries (the US, Australia) that the bumper years of mobility growth ended in 2009/10

Internationalisation

• Curriculum

• Research Partnerships

• Internships

• Exchanges

• Summer schools

• Business Partnerships

• Overseas Campuses

• Transnational Education

• Customers? X

• Consumers? X

• Partners?

What are Students?

Students as Partners

• Right voice, Right time, Right place

• The power of the partnership voice

• From ‘AT’ to ‘WITH’ Plymouth University

• Increase access

• High quality research

• Partnership with students

• Improve PIs, NSS drop out, contact time

• Review academic offer in the new marketised environment

• Excel at employability

• Increase part time and distance learning

• Expand and imbed work place learning

• Increase overseas students and transnational education (and outward mobility)

• Shared services to reduce backline costs

• Staff need to be engaged and own institutional mission and financial strategy

How do Universities Succeed in the New Landscape

Thank you Questions and Discussion