Universities UK published a report today looking at long-term trends in higher education.

Futures for Higher Education: Analysing Trends pulls together the scenario planning work undertaken by vice-chancellors in Universities UK’s Longer Term Planning Network.

The project’s resources will provide a structure for universities to explore what higher education could look like decades in the future. The resulting long-term planning exercises give university leaders an opportunity to focus on trends that could shape higher education up to 2040, and to look beyond the short-term operational planning arising from the current shifting policy landscape.

Key areas covered by the report include:

Funding

• Deregulation coupled with a wider range of pricing will have far-reaching consequences, especially if further regulation according to both price and qualifications is introduced rapidly.
• The UK will need high quality graduates given the global economic situation. The system must expand and innovative funding solutions have to be found, especially for teaching. This will probably be based on the current system of higher individual contributions.

Research funding

• There will be a role for government to support research, but there could be shift towards private models of research, reflecting the current trend for decreasing reliance on public funds.

A market-based system

• More competition may mean new forms of regulation and governance that allow for comparisons across the range of institutions accessing public money.

Global demand for higher education

• Home-grown demand for higher education is likely to increase, but overall global demand will be even more pronounced. Questions will remain about whether the UK can remain competitive. There must be a favourable policy environment – imposing restrictions on student visas could be very damaging.

Importance of growing ‘transnational education’

• In 2009-10, for the first time, there were more overseas students taking UK courses overseas than came to study in the UK. This area will present significant scope for universities wanting to expand globally.

Wider range of providers

• Technology will continue to play a critical role, often in ways that are hard to predict.
• ‘Unbundling’ of services could be important and very disruptive, presenting challenges to traditionally-structured universities, especially in terms on validating knowledge and information – there are parallels with the music industry’s fight on piracy and the emergence of monopolies.
• There will be growth in for-profit providers using online learning and ‘unbundling’, possibly leading to  increasing provision of ‘pick-and-choose’ options.

Notes

1. Universities UK’s Longer Term Strategy network scenario development exercise ran from October 2010 to July 2011.
2. Universities UK has also launched a website with scenario planning resources and advice.