Costs, commitment, attainment, market reliance…

1. Costs, commitment, attainment, market reliance… Ruth Thompson Director General, Higher Education Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills Chicago, July 2007

2. Thoughts - attainment • Contentious data: we can all complain about EAG methodology • Measure needs to be proportion of people in the workforce with higher level qualifications (sub-degree or degree) • Even that doesn’t capture really important employability/productivity added measure

3. Thoughts - spending • Various figures are a spur and a goad • Don’t capture value for money – without completion rates miss outputs, without employability consequences don’t capture outcomes • Consensus is that spend should go up because returns are good (but see above) – but whose money are we talking about – state, individual (student/household), employer?

4. Thoughts – growing attainment • Getting the drop-outs to hang in there • Interventions to encourage progression and completion • Pre-HE interventions to widen participation and access • Manage transitions better: curriculum adjustment • Support (financial, but more IAG)

5. Thoughts – enrolments and revenues or costs • England : unit of funding guarantee (stands out) - slows expansion • Elsewhere: squeeze on funding but competition ensures enrolments hold up? • Cost structure needs to be understood, but not assumed or generalised by funders, not compensated (except as deliberate incentive)

6. Regulatory/Market continuum • No point in generalising • Taxonomy interesting but only if policy makers want to state a direction of travel and be clear about trajectory • Question how much movement since Wellington: Scots less market orientated, others static or some slight movement to market