This year's publication of this annual report covers the ten-year period following academic year 2006–07, and looks at a variety of areas covering students and staff at, and finances of, UK higher education institution. The report’s findings include that the total number of students in 2015–16, at around 2.3 million, is broadly the same as in 2006–07 but underlying changes have seen a shift in the student body and what is studied. There has been growth in younger and female students and those fr...

Universities minister Jo Johnson has argued, in this paper, that the university funding system is working well. After Damian Green went off script over the weekend and admitted that university funding needs reviewing, Johnson argued that the current system is both fair and effective. IFS statistics released this week, however, reveal gaping holes in this argument. Read more

University tuition fees in England have become a political battleground - with renewed calls that they should be scrapped. When they were increased a few years ago to £9,000 they became a literal battleground, with activists clashing with police on the streets around Westminster. Now they are going to rise again. But what has the impact of higher fees been? Have they cut student numbers? And are they worth the money? Read more

Guardian Letters on the topic of 'Tuition Fees': It is shameful that the poorest students will now finish university with £57,000 in debt, more than those from better-off homes. Our research has shown that graduates will be paying back their loans well into middle age, affecting their ability to go to graduate school or afford a mortgage, and decisions on having children. It is grossly unfair that someone from a council estate should pay more than someone from a top boarding school. At good A...

Rising numbers of students from more disadvantaged homes are dropping out of universities in England before completing their studies, figures show. The proportion of youngsters from disadvantaged families who do not continue after their first year has reached the highest level for five years, says the Office for Fair Access. Official data shows that in 2014-15, 8.8% of young, full-time, disadvantaged undergraduates did not continue in higher education beyond their first year - up from 8.2% t...

The creation of a new wave of grammar schools in England has been ditched from the government's plans. The Queen's Speech says the government will "look at all options" for opening new schools, but that will not include removing the current ban on expanding selection. The controversial plan to stop free lunches for all infants is also absent. This takes away the biggest source of extra funding promised for schools in the Conservative manifesto. The government, setting out its plans for the n...

Less affluent students in higher education are significantly more likely to experience problems with socialising and integrating than their peers from well-off families, says a major new study. Only 33% of the students from D and E socioeconomic groups said they were well integrated with the students they lived with, compared with 50% of students from A and B socioeconomic groups. Only 34% of the group said they had friends at university whom they socialised with at least twice a week, compar...

Labour’s plan to fund higher school spending through increases in corporation tax could boost educational performance but would risk damaging the economy’s long-term growth prospects, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said. The thinktank's analysis of one of Jeremy Corbyn’s flagship policies shows that reversing the government’s planned cuts to schools’ budgets would be comfortably paid for by the extra revenue raised by increasing the main rate of corporation tax to 26%. Under current ...

The 11-plus can “never be tutor-proof”, a major grammar school exam board has admitted, as one of the last remaining selective counties announced it was abandoning its five-year experiment with tests designed to be immune from coaching. All 13 of Buckinghamshire County Council’s grammar schools are to re-instate GL Assessment as their 11-plus provider, despite axing it five years ago amid concern that its questions were predictable and therefore favoured wealthy parents who could pay for extr...

The odds are loaded against children from disadvantaged backgrounds who apply for grammar schools in Kent, suggests a study. Entrance tests for the county's grammars "understate the true academic abilities" of poorer children, says the Education Datalab report. The "heavily" selective county will be a useful case study if grammars are rolled out nationally, says the study. Kent County Council said it was working to boost social mobility in grammars. Ministers have announced plans for a ne...