1. Higher Education – A Unique Success Story
the Successes, the Challenges and Threats, and the
Opportunities
Bill Rammell
Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Plymouth University

2. Poacher Turned Game Keeper
• Insights from both sides of the fence
• Universities – strong voice
• Friends in high places
• Need for consistency and proportion
• Unique UK success story

3. HE Development in Perspective
– the Last Decade
• Introduction of variable fees
• Foundation degree awarding powers
• PMI
• Stability
• Student voice
• Greater scrutiny of Universities

4. Challenges Facing the HE Sector Today
• Cuts in funding – a deficit model even at £9,000
• Radical change to student number allocation
• Fees potentially forced below £7,500
• Increasing power of the student consumer
• Quality academic support demanded
• Challenge of private providers
• Demand for high level skills in the work place
• Internationalisation

5. Sustainability of New Fees Regime?
• Significant implications for the Treasury due to the increased threshold
for graduates to repay their student loan:
⁻ In 30 years’ time the UK Government is likely to have to write off
debt of between £30,649 and £64,935 for every full-time
university student who graduates in 2015
⁻ The report estimates that the recurrent annual liability to the
Government of the current fees regime is approximately £9bn
• Policy shift from Widening Participation to Fair Access
• New fees regime unlikely to change
‘First Steps to Wealth’ - Skandia

6. University-level skills are Vital
• ‘Graduate premium’ at nearly £600,000
• Graduate vacancies continue to grow
• Jobs in ‘graduate dense’ occupations are an increasing
proportion of the total workforce
• Graduate employment rates have been maintained despite
the rapid expansion in the number of graduates
‘First Steps to Wealth’ – Skandia. ‘The Way We Work’ – University Alliance

7. Core and Margin
• The core and margin redistributes students:
1. Based on price (Fees)
2. Based on grade profile of the student (AAB)
• Institutions can offer unlimited places to AAB
• 9% of student numbers will be taken from those institutions
charging £6k or more fees and redistributed to private providers
and those charging low fees
• Core and margin, and AAB unlikely to change for 13/14

8. To survive Institutions need to be:
• Bold
• Confident
• Different
• Distinctive
• Agile

9. The Student Experience
• KIS
• NSS
• Entrepreneurship and Innovation
• Employability
• Internationalisation
• Leadership Skills
• Work experience, through placements, volunteering
and part time jobs
• Students as Partners

10. Employability Agenda
• Three strands:
– Curriculum
– Co-curriculum
– Extra-curriculum
• Extra-curricular award schemes
• Students as Leaders
• Volunteering and work experience
• US campus jobs model?

11. Internationalisation – the Challenges
Reasons for optimism about growth in international student mobility:
• Concentration of world population in developing countries with
rising birth-rates, an increasing demand for education in these
countries, and limited domestic capacity to provide education
• Development of the global economy and associated emergence
of China, India and other Asian countries as major economic
powers
• Untapped growth potential of mobility below tertiary level
Reasons for caution about growth in international student mobility:
• Concerns over “brain drain” have driven sending countries to
build up their own tertiary systems
• Rapid growth in transnational education means students can get
at least some international education benefits without leaving
home
• Early signs from a few key countries (the US, Australia) that the
bumper years of mobility growth ended in 2009/10
Source: “Who Goes Where and Why?” Macready /Tucker

12. Internationalisation
• Curriculum
• Research Partnerships
• Internships
• Exchanges
• Summer schools
• Business Partnerships
• Overseas Campuses
• Transnational Education

13. What are Students?
• Customers? X
• Consumers? X
• Partners?

14. Students as Partners
• Right voice, Right time, Right place
• The power of the partnership voice
• From ‘AT’ to ‘WITH’ Plymouth University

15. How do Universities Succeed in the New Landscape
• Increase access
• High quality research
• Partnership with students
• Improve PIs, NSS drop out, contact time
• Review academic offer in the new marketised environment
• Excel at employability
• Increase part time and distance learning
• Expand and imbed work place learning
• Increase overseas students and transnational education (and outward mobility)
• Shared services to reduce backline costs
• Staff need to be engaged and own institutional mission and financial strategy

16. Thank you
Questions and Discussion