Opinion piece by G. R. Evans On April 4 the Higher Education and Research Bill left the Lords for the Commons after its Third Reading and on the same day the Technical and Further Education Bill also went back to the Commons with some Lords’ amendments.  The following day the Lords debated a Motion of...Read More

As noted in an earlier blogpost, CDBU has a strong interest in student fees. We are concerned that Fees in England are nearly four times higher than in Ireland and seven times higher than the next most expensive country in the EU, the Netherlands. English students now graduate with over three times more student debt...Read More

In the second of our two short videos responding to UKIP’s and Plaid Cymru’s STEM policy, Howard Hotson notes how abolishing fees for STEM subjects is logically problematic.Read More

Last October, the Council for Defence of British Universities (CDBU) asked UK political parties for their manifestos on financing of Higher Education. We are still waiting for a reply from Labour and Conservatives. See http://cdbu.org.uk/party-policies-on-fees/ We are grateful to UKIP, Plaid Cymru and the Green party for their prompt responses. However, we are concerned that...Read More

A core concern of CDBU is the funding of higher education in the UK. We are not a party political organisation, but we take an intense interest in policies relevant to our aims. With an impending election, we think it is important that the public be well-informed about the intentions of different political parties. Accordingly,...Read More

Although CDBU’s focus is on British Universities, we take a keen interest in developments in other countries. Australia is of particular interest, because the loans system used in Australian higher education was used to help justify the marketisation of English universities. But now, the English example is provoking calls for even more radical change in...Read More