BU Research Blog

Please find last week’s policy digest below. I will be on leave now for two weeks, so you will get a bumper edition on 8 Sept.

Monday 18 August

Graduate opportunities

An extensive piece in The Times looks at the need for more realistic and accurate career guidance in law. More than 17,500 graduates are pursuing about 5,000 training contracts at law firms and some 400 pupillages in barristers’ chambers.

The worsening odds for today’s student lawyers (The Times)

Tuesday 19 August 

Clearing update 

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) said the number of applicants accepted by their insurance choice of university was 33,240, an increase of 14 per cent. This increase is thought to have been caused because of the dip in A-level grades awarded last week. Some universities have lowered entry requirements but others refused to accept near-miss candidates in the hope of snapping up better qualified teenagers who have been rejected by higher tariff universities. 

Students forced to settle for second choice university (The Times)

Clearing: an unedifying spectacle of unis going cap-in-hand to students (The Guardian – Higher Education Network blog)

Wednesday 20 August

Student fees 

A survey by Saga said the ‘Bank of Nan and Grandad’ will hand out around £16.7 billion for their grandchildren’s academic studies. The survey of nearly 10,000 people over the age of 50 revealed how the amount of financial assistance provided by the country’s devoted grandparents has increased sharply. Five years ago, a similar investigation found Grandparents typically handing over around £1000 for university education. Today, this averages £4000.

More than a third of grandparents admit helping to pay for their grandchildren to go through university  (The Daily Mail)

Thursday 21 August

Graduate opportunities

The Independent looks at how graduates are finding it difficult to get a job after leaving universities because they don’t have the right skills or experience. It suggests the demands from recruiters for experienced entry-level graduates seems unrealistically high: it can be challenging to juggle work experience and study and not all degrees provide the option of a placement year to gain industry experience. However, the graduate labour market is showing signs of improvement. At the end of July the Association of Graduate Recruiters released a report that predicts a 17 per cent rise in graduate job vacancies this year. The Telegraph piece suggests graduates are rushing into the wrong roles for fear of having a hole in their CV after university. 

Got the degree – now for the job (The Independent)

Graduates take wrong job just to be employed(Telegraph)

STEM subjects

A HEFCE study of student numbers has shown that STEM subjects have emerged well from the tripling of maximum tuition fees in 2012-2013 suggesting the government has had some success in protecting the disciplines during a period of radical change. But languages have continued to decline with HEFCE warning numbers in 2013-14 could be at their lowest level for a decade.

Demand for STEM subjects holds up in wake of fees hike, (THE)

Friday 22 August

Participation age

An extensive piece from BBC News online which examines the impact of raising the leaving age to 17 last September (which will rise to 18 in September 2016).  It looks particularly at GCSEs with Prof Alison Wolf, a specialist in the relationship between education and the labour market at King’s College London and who authored the 2011 review of vocational education, arguing that GCSEs remain an important benchmark as the results determine students’ progress into their next stage of education, training or employment. However Prof Alan Smithers, director of Buckingham University’s Centre for Education and Employment Research, would prefer to see GCSEs replaced with exams at 14 or 15.

Do GCSEs still matter with a school leaving age of 17? (BBC News)