Higher education

It is widely acknowledged that universities need to do more to support student mental health. Yet many academics and service staff are worried that well-intentioned initiatives pathologise ordinary anxieties and can do harm as well as good. Kathryn Ecclestone listens to their concerns

As their book about the deep links between education and well-being is published, Anne Case and Nobel laureate Angus Deaton tell John Morgan about their jaw-dropping discoveries of a sharp rise in ‘deaths of despair’ among white American people – and an unhealthy obsession with causality among journals

David Wheeler learns the lessons of a charismatic university president’s success

Douglas Dowland considers the damage inflicted by the control freaks of the academy – and some of the ways he has found to keep his own inner control freak in line

With a new show in the pipeline, academics have many suggestions for plot lines and pitfalls to avoid

Book of the week: Nick Hillman sifts through the arguments in a bold attempt to determine the future of higher education

Analysis of 17,000 articles in the field finds lack of integration between different areas of study

Laurel Leff

Michael Marinetto learns some crucial lessons about good writing and research 

Lincoln Allison looks back to an age of tougher marking and considers what, if anything, we need to do about the historically inevitable slide towards grade inflation

The Buckingham education professor’s musings on educational decline are a mainstay of the British press. But is academia right to be dismissive of his views and unusual modus operandi?

Book of the week: Lincoln Allison is surprised by the amount of common ground he, as a traditionalist academic, now shares with the ‘innovatory managers’ he once quarrelled with 

Augar’s questions remain largely unanswered but proposals for further education are largely comprehensive and coherent, says Nick Hillman

John Anchor enjoys an account of where business schools have gone wrong

Universities need to acknowledge, and try to mitigate, the losses experienced by many upwardly mobile students, argues Jennifer M. Morton

Richard Joyner enjoys a striking collection of testimonies that should help students settle on a suitable career path

Universities are rapidly expanding their student rolls, using their increased scale to invest, compete and insulate themselves against economic uncertainty. But at what cost, asks Ellie Bothwell

At a time when stress and mental health issues are endemic within universities, Erin K. Wilson considers the small steps she is determined to take in order to be part of the solution

Book of the week: Deborah D. Rogers and Howard P. Segal find that the old ideals of meritocracy have been squeezed out of American higher education

Amanda Power considers some of the deeper attitudes that can still inhibit academics from fully engaging in essential policy issues

Increasing numbers of students are seeking counselling, suffering from depression and even feeling suicidal. Jason Murugesu urges universities to put much stronger systems in place to provide essential backup for teaching staff

Historically black colleges and universities in the US have never had the funding or the prestige enjoyed by many other institutions. Yet, argue Marybeth Gasman and Thai-Huy Nguyen, they may have much to teach us all about diversity

Harriet Dunbar-Morris applauds a new guide to how academics can serve as coaches and ‘signposters’

Randy Robertson urges universities to look again at the downsides of highly specialist degrees

Shane McCorristine considers the illicit and sometimes horrifying ways teaching institutions used to secure corpses for trainee doctors to learn anatomy

Caitlin Zaloom considers how we can prevent escalating fees from tying students to their parents well into adulthood

Critical thinking is not enough. Students must be taught dynamics of social media, say Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren

Aniko Horvath considers a collection that illuminates the deeper causes of the everyday irritations of life as an academic

Lennard Davis wonders whether activist academics have wrongly prioritised exuberantly bad behaviour over the hard graft of working for real change

Exam invigilator Helen Soteriou reveals the elaborate schemes devised by students seeking to cheat on their tests

Book of the week: David Wheeler enjoys a bold overview of how universities in the US have been transformed over three-quarters of a century

A significant minority of tenured faculty spend their lives undermining others when they could be working for progressive change, argues Douglas Dowland

Three scholars reflect on finding new purpose outside the academy

David L. Wheeler is only partly convinced by an attempt to put higher education under the ethical spotlight

University of Alaska cuts are just the latest example of what is probably the new normal in US political culture, says Ben Trachtenberg

Conference hears about the challenges of coexistence between proselytising religious students and their secular peers

New research calls for greater support for exiled academics with a view to rebuilding the system

Ostensibly unsuccessful educational experiment still has important lessons for us today, claims historian

Joanna Williams assesses a controversial and ‘at times eye-watering’ account of policing sexuality

Successful publish-or-perish operators should look in the mirror before writing their next diatribe about marketisation, says Mike Marinetto

A review following the latest iteration of the PBRF could lead to radical changes that undermine the gains made, warns Roger Smyth

In a managerial era, universities are challenging the traditional idea that only individuals need protecting, say Otto Hüther and Georg Krücken

Candid interviews with Chinese university presidents and government officials reveal widespread doubt that institutional freedom has increased

Robert MacIntosh considers how university staff should approach the management merry-go-round of vice-chancellors, pro vice-chancellors and department heads

‘Cloud cuckoo land’ to think British-based academics will be partners of choice after exit from European Union, conference hears

Indian scholar explains why she thinks guidelines on ensuring PhDs focus on ‘national priorities’ are dangerous and wrong

Lennard Davis on a study of a decade of managerial evolution rather than student revolution

This account of the contemporary digital university outlines opportunities to construct a more progressive learning environment and culture, says Simon Horrocks

Matthew Reisz considers the work of researchers who have shed light on the ‘invisibility’ of social class in US universities

Higher salaries enjoyed by many graduates are offset by sky-high living costs in many cities, but this quality of life metric is entirely absent from policy debate, says Charlie Ball

Debate sparked by criticism of growth of PhDs by publication, and allegations that corruption and nepotism are undermining the reliability of the academic doctorate

Louis Theroux’s interviews with those accused of sexual assault at US campuses should be a wake-up call to UK universities who have ducked this issue for years, says Graham Towl

Ministers love talking about grand government-directed projects, but Philip Hammond must reaffirm tomorrow the UK’s support for open-ended research using quality-related funding, says Stephanie Smith

Royal Statistical Society vice-president Guy Nason explains why it has taken the unusual step of reporting the Teaching Excellence Framework to the UK’s statistics watchdog

Cage Boons explains why he and other University of Hertfordshire students decided to run their own careers fair for ethnic minority undergraduates

Degree apprenticeships are helping to alter perceptions of earn-as-you-learn courses, but universities must demonstrate their value to students and employers, says Jane Turner

Ministers are right to question student recruitment practices in some universities, but restricting loan access to those who fail to hit three Ds at A level would be a retrograde step, says Tom Richmond

Ahead of International Women’s Day on 8 March, Selina Sutton explains what universities are doing wrong (and right) when supporting PhD candidates during pregnancy and beyond

Robert Zimmer explains why the US president’s threat to deny federal funds to colleges that fail to protect free speech is a bad idea

Treasury officials will find it harder to ignore the deficit pressures caused by subsidising lower-earning creative arts students after analysis, researcher argues