Wonkhe

Recently Wonkhe published an analysis of the National Student Survey (NSS) data for 2026 and looked at what the last two decades of NSS had taught us. There is a telling phrase from the blog that is worth repeating: “If the NSS exists to drive improvement, the groups who most needed improvement got the least of it.” Disabled students are one of those groups with a growing gap in NSS results.

A dangerous myth is gaining traction with teenagers picking their university subjects, which I’m sure has also spread to many parents: there’s no point studying computing any more, because Generative AI can do it all now. On results day, figures from UCAS showed that the numbers of students accepting places on Computing degrees at UK universities had fallen for the second year running; (by seven per cent for UK 18 year olds).

Life, as no less a philosopher than Ferris Bueller noted, comes at you pretty fast. This is the ninth year I have analysed data on A level results and clearing for Wonkhe; it is the first time that I have a personal stake in the data. A close member of my family (OK, my actual child, who in no way can possibly be old enough to do so…) took A levels this year, did well, and has a place on the university course of their dreams.

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UK universities increasingly present themselves as global institutions with diverse campuses and a plethora of international partnerships. However, this vision relies on an under-examined assumption that a narrow form of standard academic English is the default language of higher education.

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Five English universities – Bath Spa University, Buckinghamshire New University, Leeds Trinity University, London Metropolitan University, and Southampton Solent University – sought a judicial review of the Secretary of State’s decision that a full-time in-person higher education course could not be delivered solely on weekends.

The year is 2007, the Office for Science and Innovation (OSI) has been abolished and a new Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) has been created. There are significant concerns about reductions in the STFC budget and a House of Commons report notes that “the STFC have recognised that it could have communicated its plans better” So far, so familiar.

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Just over a year ago on the site, I went hunting for performance. I was looking to see how universities had done against the targets that universities had agreed with the Office for Students (OfS) in their 2020–21 to 2024–25 access and participation plans. Back then, I restricted the analysis to the Russell Group – partly for manageability, partly because the mismatch between that group’s promises and its performance was the story that OfS itself had told when it launched the plans.