A New Social Contract for Students, 2017 (20 Nov 2017)
Lucy Hunter Blackburn was approached by several media outlets for her comments on the Scottish Government's Independent Review of Student Funding upon the publication of its final report on Monday the 20th November 2017.
CREID’s work on higher education and devolution continues to inform the development of Scottish higher education policy. In November 2016, the Scottish Government established an independent committee, chaired by Jayne Anne Gadhia, to conduct a review of student support in Scotland. The focus of the review was on student maintenance, rather than tuition fees. The report, entitled A New Social Contract for Students: Fairness, Parity and Clarity, was published in November 2017. The Appendix D (p. 78) listed the reports and papers which informed the Committee’s work. These included the following:
- Riddell, S., Weedon, E., & Minty, S. (2016). Higher education in Scotland the UK: Diverging or converging systems? Edinburgh: EUP.
- Hunter Blackburn, L. (2015). Whose to lose? Citizens, institutions and the ownership of higher education funding in a devolved UK. HEPI report 72. Oxford: HEPI.
- Riddell, S., Edward, S., Boeren, E., & Weedon, E. (2014). Widening access to higher education: Does anyone know what works? Edinburgh: CREID.
- Whittaker, S. (2014). Working paper 2: Student cross-border mobility within the UK: A summary of research findings. Edinburgh: CREID.
- Hunter Blackburn, L. (2014). Working paper 3: The fairest of them all? The support for Scottish students in full-time higher education in 2014-15. Edinburgh: CREID.
Specific references to Riddell et al. (2016) are made on pages 20 and 26 of the report.
Following the launch of the report, the work of Lucy Hunter Blackburn was cited in a number of newspaper reports. These included:
- Daily Record (21 November 2017). Trying to spin gold from political straw
- The Financial Times (20 November 2017, by Mure Dickie). Scotland urged to give university students a ‘living wage’: Report’s proposal would be in addition to free tuition.