Today 16th May the Government releases its white paper on Higher Education. To see an overview of what this will contain go to https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36294200

The White Paper reveals some interesting developments that could have positive implications for Crossfields Institute. Most exciting of these is that new providers will find it easier to obtain the power to award degrees. You will see in news reports that these are called ‘Challenger Institutions’ because they represent a challenge to the established universities. The idea of challenging the status quo around how education is delivered, what it addresses, and who can take part is something we like the sound of – its what we do.

The press will be focusing a lot on two elements in the white paper: the raising of tuition fees beyond the current 9,000 a year cap and the permission to do that being based on the score a University gets for the quality of its teaching as measured by the Teaching Excellence Framework. Challenger Institutions will be in a good position to provide cheaper and potentially more innovative degrees. Something the press doesn’t seem to be picking up on is a loosening of the Framework for Higher Education Qualifications to allow for greater student mobility between institutions. This should make the transfer of credit for learning achieved to be more easily transferred. This is certainly good news for one of our latest projects which is to explore the demand for a completion year for people who never finished their degree and would like to do so by taking an innovative one year liberal arts completion course.

Exciting times in Higher Education – watch this space…