The head of Britain's first for-profit university college was paid £738,000 ($1,177,000) in one year, while the co-chief executive officer of the firm’s U.S. owner has a long-term pay deal valued at £15.8 million ($25.2 million).
High fees plus the prohibition of any part-time working by international students at private colleges have ensured the dramatic contraction of the industry, says Geoffrey Alderman
As private higher education makes inroads in Britain, lawmakers should look to the United States for lessons on shaping how the industry will grow and evolve, a new report says.
One of Britain's best-known public intellectuals took higher-education observers by surprise on Sunday with the announcement that he is spearheading the establishment of what would be an unprecedented kind of institution in Britain—a private, for-profit liberal-arts college that would rival elite institutions such as the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford.
But today they are facing two imminent threats to their near-monopoly of higher education. The first is the expansion of educational providers that exist solely on private support. The second comes from the small but growing efforts of for-profit universities, heavily influenced by commercial education ventures in the United States.
Only one message will have reached most of the public from Sir Andrew Foster's report on further education: that a significant (but unspecified) proportion of colleges are failing and should be taken over by private providers. Not surprisingly for a 113-page assessment of an entire sector, the real verdict is much more complex and generally more sympathetic to the colleges. Sir Andrew blames successive governments for giving further education too wide a brief, confusing employers and students while spreading resources too thinly. He suggests that higher education courses are among the distractions, and he advocates a model closer to the American community college. Sir Andrew Foster
The British government will abandon plans to make it easier for private higher-education institutions, including for-profit American companies, to operate in the country, reports The Telegraph.
The establishment of a new private liberal-arts college in London, which was announced to widespread media coverage on Sunday, appears to have already hit several significant hurdles. A.C. Grayling, a well-known philosopher and the driving force behind the New College of the Humanities, had said in an introduction to the institution posted on its Web site that its students would have access to many resources at the University of London, including its libraries. However, in a statement, the University of London said that there was “no formal agreement between the University of London and the NCH concerning academic matters” and that there was not yet any agreement “regarding access to the Senate House Libraries by NCH students.”
A physician plans to open what will become Britain's first privately financed medical school since the 19th century, promising to train doctors in about half the time it takes at one of the nation'...
Coalition plans to expand the number of private universities risks leading to higher drop out rates and lower academic standards, according to a powerful lobby of almost 500 professors.
Coalition government plans to expand the number of private universities in the UK risks leading to higher dropout rates and lower academic standards, according to a powerful lobby of almost 500 professors, writes Graeme Paton for The Telegraph. It is claimed that giving profit-making companies access to state funding will create a system in which institutions pursue short-term financial gains at the expense of a decent education.
The British government's apparent move to suspend the higher education bill will not automatically derail the expansion of private provision, according to government critics and leading private institutions.
The UK government is poised to smooth the passage for private investment in higher education, creating an opportunity for private equity investors to make a mark on the sector
According to a report from a policy thinktank, private higher education colleges in the UK face being “devastated” by last year’s government clampdown on overseas students.
David Cameron and Nick Clegg are to abandon radical plans to reform Britain’s university system that would have seen more private firms competing to educate students, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
The only for-profit institution in Britain authorized to offer higher-education degrees is in talks with several public universities about managing the business side of their operations, according to the Guardian. The company, BPP, “has launched an aggressive expansion plan to jointly run at least 10 of its publicly funded counterparts,” the paper reports.
Kaplan, the for-profit higher education provider, is to offer tuition for external University of London degrees in a direct echo of a model for widening participation suggested by universities and science minister David Willetts.