Private HE

What is a private university?

by Doug Clow March 27, 2013

What is a private university? The latest big UK HE news is that the for-profit Regent’s College has been given the right to use the title “university”, and will become “Regent’s University London”. The Guardian says that it “will become only the second private university in Britain”… which I’m not sure is the case. It is definitely a university. And it is definitely in Britain. But is it private? And does it count as the second one? Well, it depends what you mean by a private university. This post takes a look at what these terms mean, and gathers together details of the recent changes that have taken place primarily in English HE which have muddied waters both public and private.

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NCH – new company structure

by Andrew McGettigan September 3, 2012

Private investment is about to boom in the UK and we need to be clear about the complex mechanisms being employed. Something bugs me about Anthony Grayling and the way he presents New College of the Humanities. Nothing is ever quite as it seems. This is an investigation into recent changes to NCH that will be of interest to anyone paying attention to the way the sector is changing behind the scenes.

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London Met – outsourcing? or something else?

by Andrew McGettigan August 23, 2012

I carry with me at all times a 2009 report for Universities UK prepared by the legal firm Eversheds. Why? On page 7 of ‘Developing future university structures’, you will find a diagram entitled ‘A model for university buyouts’. I suggest you look at that diagram and then read the stories about London Metropolitan University’s intentions to ‘outsource’ all staff besides teaching staff and vice-chancellor. What they are doing is something new; they aim to create a vehicle to run universities across the UK.

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The Pearson BSc

by Andrew McGettigan August 14, 2012

The media today has been covering the public launch of Pearson College. The new offering from the education publishing giant sees it move into full undergraduate degrees from the HNCs and HNDs it offers through its subsidiary, the examination board Edexcel. This post looks at the interesting changes to Pearson’s business model that have taken place which tells us a lot about the current state of HE reform.

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The College of Law: misunderstandings continue

by Andrew Fisher April 19, 2012

The College of Law put out a press release on 17 April to announce the expected conclusion of the sale of their legal education business to the private equity firm Montagu. The sale of a private HE provider with degree awarding powers isn’t unprecedented, but it is unusual enough to have made the news. Unfortunately, the news reports have got some significant aspects of the story wrong because they don’t understand how degree awarding powers are regulated, and the College’s press materials on the issue were unhelpfully worded.

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Not for profit

by Martin Hall December 1, 2011

Should the embryonic for-profit sector of British Higher Education be given the same access to public funds as other universities, and what would happen if they were?

There is plenty of competition between publicly funded universities, and a very wide range of student choice by programme of study, type of institution, geographical location and reputation. Whatever one thinks of the White Paper and the new system of student funding, it is very evidently introducing student choice by price of qualification as well; from 2012, students will be able to choose programmes of study that will range in price from below £6,000 to £9,000 per year. There is no inherent need for a large for-profit sector to provide future students with a “genuine alternative”.

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