Today is the day that we've all been dreading waiting for. The final unveiling of the UK Higher Education White Paper.
It's expected later today, but here's some early reactions.
The Guardian runs with "'Naming and shaming' for degrees with poor jobs record", which gets to the core of the matter:
Scrapping or overhauling "dead-end" courses would limit losses to the taxpayer from students who fail to repay their loans.
The BBC are going with "Universities shake-up eyes greater competition", focusing on a fight for proportion of places.
Aaron Porter has been taking the opportunity to point out some major flaws, stating:
The #HEWhitePaper has failed to show how it will improve access to Uni or improve quality #missedopportunity
@renireni gives us this, which I think is absolutely spot on:
Full implementation of the student as consumer. Cost of everything, value of nothing #hewhitepaper
Meanwhile, the Tory minority on Twitter (@richardbrabner) seem to have found a way of gamifying the concerns:
Good morning @MarioCreatura, shall we try and find the most over-the-top reaction to the #HEWhitePaper today? Pint for the winner?
Meanwhile, @timeshighered remains a great source for updates throughout the day. In the meanwhile, I'm going to use today to get away from all this arguing and actually go teach.
Update: 09:10am
@emmielouli posts an interesting piece on Resisting the HE White Paper.
Think my next update will be much later as there's much of the same material circulating on speculation.
Update: 16:16
The White Paper is out and you can read it here: UK HE White PaperUK HE White Paper 2011.
Update: 19:31
Many responses in, a sample:
The Times Higher: a roundup of official responses.
Education Activist Network: "a disaster for universities".
Mike Baker: a good rundown of what's actually in there!
Featured image by FeatheredTar under a CC-BY license.