Futures for Higher Education

Scenario workshop

FACILITATOR PACK

FUTURES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

Trends presentation 2016

This presentation focuses on three main trends

The funding of higher education in the UK

The demand for higher education

Innovation and evolution in higher education

A PICTUREFORTHE FUTURE?

And these are points for the group to consider

Headline questions

• What are the key decisions that face your institution?

• How might these shape higher education in the UK and around the world?

• How do you see the future of HE in the long term?

Things to think about

• What sectors have changed beyond recognition?

• What sectors are starting rapid change now?

• What about ‘Black Swans’?

These are some caricatures of the last decade

• Demand continuing to outstrip heavily regulated supply

• Persistence of a dominant 3 year residential degree model – prestige of traditional models

• Private providers and FE marginal or subordinate to universities

We are now set for a liberalisation of the market

• Supply side liberalisation

• Tuition fee replacing grant – with more scope for differentiation in cost (Or not...)

• Stronger demand led focus on ‘quality’

• Introduction of amendable mechanisms to restrain taxpayer liability

Others sectors have been through liberalisation

•Lots of small niche suppliers & some big value entrantsNew entrants?

•In what is offered in terms of services, pricing, support, etcInnovation? •Biggest and most financially sound of the ‘incumbents’Continued market

domination for a time?

•Amongst both original players and new entrantsFailures, mergers and take-overs?

•Ex ante to protect consumer interests and ex post competition lawNew regulation?

•An influx of foreign investment at some pointNew sources of funding?

Will this lock in the shift to tuition based funding?

0%

10%

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2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15

Indicative breakdown of funding between loans for the graduate contribution and HEFCE teaching grant, 2010/11 to 2014/15

Loans outlay to HEIs

HEFCE teaching grant

What other questions will need to be resolved?

Immediate questions •Impact of government student number de regulation and incentives (AAB and £75000)

•The new regulatory framework – extent of any de regulation or liberalisation

Short/ Medium term questions

•Ending ‘moral hazard’ produced by government-backed loan – some risk transfer onto institutions•Reducing government exposure to cost of loan book through RAB charge adjustments•Setting student numbers free – ending student number controls•Use of competition regulation

Ongoing variable themes •Public value agendas of mobility, equality and access

•Research concentration v. diversification

But addressing these trends is not simple

Brand Positioning Investment

Overseas academic and

industry partners for research

New competitors – US and Chinese

universities

Complex ethical and political landscape

Diverse student and staffing

needs

New organisational

challenges – HR, finance

Wider range of degree models

(1+2 etc)

How will financial models evolve?

• Efficiencies: streamlining and new accounting practices?

• Costs: hollowing out of functions as part of efficiency and modernisation strategies – narrower focus?

• Funding: new models of private revenue?

• New ways of monetising the asset base – investment driven organisations?

And what about ‘unbundled’ models of delivery?

• The role of technology in enabling the disaggregation of delivery and compartmentalised ‘products’

– The delivery process:• Content – syllabus, research & scholarship• Classroom – teaching, lectures, supervision• Infrastructure – IT networks, libraries, estates

etc

– The ‘product’:• Pay as you go tuition, credit accumulation• Examination, accreditation and validation• Assessment• Library services• Accommodation• Student finance?

And social priorities will evolve – what will be the next one?

• The shift to a digital society: innovated and incubated by universities in the first place

• Will it all be about technological and social solutions for climate change, or something else?

Future of UK university research base, UUK 2010

Some initial questions for the group

• What is right, wrong or missing from this picture: or have you heard it too often to care?

• What is most significant for you and what are you less bothered about?

• What are the most significant uncertainties and how might these shape outcomes?

• What other ways are there or should there be of looking at all this?

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