The week in higher education
• Middlesex University is to become "the most expensive in Britain", according to a newspaper. Figures from the Office for Fair Access show that Middlesex will charge annual tuition fees of £8,602...

• Middlesex University is to become "the most expensive in Britain", according to a newspaper. Figures from the Office for Fair Access show that Middlesex will charge annual tuition fees of £8,602...

Swing theory - Unpicking Australia’s demand-led reforms

A loud voice alone is not enough to merit a hearing, says Steven Schwartz

Weekly transmissions from the blogosphere
The UK and Australia are taking different approaches to a similar problem - and both face bleak futures if they fail
As principal and chief executive of a higher education institution that prides itself on the individually focused, formative education it offers its students, I welcome the government's moves, as...
The Office for Fair Access' decisions on access agreements have thrown up some interesting differences in approach between "fee waivers" and "bursaries" ("Will Treasury coffers trump student pockets...
We are writing on behalf of the UK's four higher education funding bodies to highlight an error in your article "Equality to score higher in REF" (14 July).In detailing many of the key measures in...
Simon Marginson states that "subsidising just science-based areas fosters a lopsided 'idea of the university'" ("Liberal thinking", 14 July). His article is the latest to suggest that the arts and...
You recently referred to The Observer's coverage of the visit to Brazil by David Willetts, the universities and science minister, and several UK university representatives (The Week in Higher...
Gary Thomas and Nick Peim are right ("In ourselves we trust: if quality is the aim, think outside the tick-box", 14 July): the removal of trust means the removal of responsibility. I would go further...
The University of Oxford should be proud of the way in which it has used its Rupert Murdoch chair of language and communication to turn "bad money into good" ("Oxford steadfast on Murdoch links", 14...
While I support the general drift of your editorial "Give them incentives to improve" (14 July), I observe that the word "teach" and derivatives of it appear 13 times and "learning" three.The two are...

Distance learning specialist the Open University will undercut every higher education institution in England in 2012 by charging fees of £5,000 a year for degrees from September 2012, it has been...
A committee of MPs has criticised the way in which the government cut the Education Maintenance Allowance, which supported poor 16-19 year olds in education.