‘Hard-headed’ measures of student success needed – OfS director

The universities regulator must be “hard-headed” in its approach to measuring student success to sustain public confidence in higher education, but more can be done to reflect the breadth of the sector and students, an Office for Students (OfS) director has said. 

Speaking at an event in Westminster organised by the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi), Chris Millward, who rejoined the regulator as its interim fair access director last year, said that while there is a need to be protective of public funding, “we can be enlightened beyond that to reflect the diversity of our institutions and the diversity of the sector”. 

“Different subjects, and indeed teaching and research, have different levels of demand, different levels of income, and different levels of recognition,” he said. “Crudely, it is harder to sustain physics, music, and midwifery in a university than it is business, law and computer science, but they’re equally important.”

Universities have long been wary of graduate outcomes data, which measures how many graduates have secured employment 15 months after they leave university and their median salary. 

Critics say the 15-month snapshot is not reflective of the diverse pathways students take after university, particularly for those entering industries that traditionally pay less or may take longer to get a foothold in. 

“Higher education is remarkably resilient, both in this country and beyond, but there is more scrutiny…of the purpose and the value of higher education and the quality of students’ learning and their experiences and what happens beyond higher education,” Millward, who has returned to his previous role at the OfS having been at the University of Birmingham as a professor of practice in education policy since 2022.

“Sustaining confidence in higher education is absolutely crucial to further progress on widening access. 

“It requires regulation that’s pretty hard-headed about common expectations across the sector if you want to get public funding, but also an enlightened approach beyond that to reflect the diversity of the sector.”

He added that changing modes of study, including government policies like the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, should be built into measures of student success.

“Some issues like completion, standards, and employment are always going to be of interest to regulators – that’s true in this country and it’s true elsewhere – but we can be engaged and we can be enlightened in our approach to measuring them.”

It comes as student outcomes face increased scrutiny, with critics suggesting the graduate premium is in decline as more young people go to university. More recently, an outcry over student loan repayments has led to more public focus on the high debt levels of graduates. 

Speaking at the same event, Alex Stanley, vice-president for higher education at the National Union of Students, said many of those entering university today are “banking on that graduate premium and hanging on for dear life in the midst of having to work longer hours than ever before, not necessarily having the well-being support that they need and cuts happening all around them”.

“Students beating the odds and doing well...in spite of circumstance is not what success looks like,” he continued. 

“University should be accessible to get into, enjoyable to experience, and then beneficial to have graduated from, and all three, backed by data, must be taken into consideration in our notion of success.”

He said this should be measured by something more holistic than the 18-month graduate outcome survey, “although that is absolutely a good start”.

Stanley also hit back at suggestions that too many students are receiving first-class degrees: “Don’t penalise students working extraordinarily hard for their degrees by telling us that they only got them due to grade inflation or degree algorithms.”

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com