What to expect in Higher Education Policy in 2012

For David Eastwood, vice-chancellor of Birmingham University and member of the panel that produced the Browne review on higher education funding, 2011 was a year when the private intricacies of education policy-making became the stuff of real public debate.

Eastwood, writing for The Guardian online, makes the claim that "there has never been a more contested environment in which to make higher education policy", given that throughout the first decade of this century, most opposition to the broadly state-funded system we have in place today was "sotto voce."

Though Eastwood believes that the new system will see "enhanced choice for some applicants", but warns that "the concentration on the fee issue has actually reduced financial aid and thus real support to poor students."

By way of offering a solution, Eastwood proposes "an emphasis on appropriate financial aid, promoting access, properly linking quality and price."

Cuts would theoretically be made to "Hefce's widening participation premium, which should now be superseded by all institutions' financial aid commitments in their access agreements."

According to Eastwood, the money saved in this action "should be repurposed to support stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects, which are teetering on a new crisis."

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