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Drawing on research conducted at National University of Ireland, Galway, this paper explores how senior managers at an Irish university are seeking to measure and facilitate academic performance in the context of national and global competitiveness and a higher education landscape that appears firmly inflected by neoliberal ideas of rankings, benchmarking and productivity. [The author draws] upon Michel Foucault's writings on governmentality and biopolitics, in particular, and [the author utilises] findings from a range of in-depth interviews with central university managers, with a view to critically interrogating the envisioning of what is undoubtedly a new academic subjectivity in the Irish higher education sector - a subjectivity that is being progressively planned for and regulated.

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The dramatic massification of Latin America's higher education is leading to a social revolution with new demands on government for greater and more effective regulation. However the sector's market development, based on private as much as public institutions and funding, cannot be easily organized. Facing increasing political demands, governments and stakeholders will have to ensure - through innovative instruments and policies - greater quality [and] employability while adapting funding and curricula to massification, in order to meet the aspirations of Latin America's present and future youth.

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The new demands of mass systems of higher education and the emerging environment of global academic competition are altering the traditional institutions for assuring academic standards in universities. As a consequence many nations are experimenting with new instruments for academic quality assurance. Contemporary government control of academic quality assumes three primary forms: 'oversight' or direct regulation; 'competition' or steering of market forces; and 'mutuality' or professional self-regulation structured by the state. The challenge confronting all nations is to design a policy framework that effectively balances the forces of the state, the market, and the academic profession to assure academic standards in universities. Based upon the strengths and weaknesses observed in 14 policy analyses of innovative national instruments of professional self-regulation, market-based regulation, and direct state regulation for assuring academic quality in universities, we outline the essential components of a national framework for assuring academic standards.

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Deloitte Access Economics undertook a review of the impact of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 on the higher education sector between July 2016 and March 2017, with oversight from the Higher Education Standards Panel. The review was a substantial body of work: 36 written submissions were received, 33 stakeholders were interviewed, and the provisions of the TEQSA Act were extensively analysed. Overall, the review was positive about the establishment of TEQSA as the national regulator in 2012, and noted that the TEQSA Act is broadly operating effectively and as intended. The review did not recommend changes that would significantly alter the regulatory framework or the role of TEQSA.

The Government's response addresses each of the review's recommendations in detail, including where amendments will be needed to the TEQSA Act. The Government will develop a bill to give effect to these proposed amendments which will improve the Act's administration, strengthen TEQSA's regulatory role and better reflect the evolution of the role of the Higher Education Standards Panel statutory advisory body.

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Amid growing concerns about the quality and cost of American higher education, policymakers are searching for reforms that can both increase the supply of affordable and effective postsecondary options and maintain consumer protection. Much of the focus has tended toward the federal student aid programs and policies that govern access to those programs. Though states play an important role in authorizing postsecondary institutions to operate in their state, observers have paid comparatively less attention to how they carry out that responsibility. This paper aims to present lessons for regulatory reform by examining how states organize their authorization process.

The paper concludes by recommending a better way for states to authorize postsecondary institutions: a risk-based approach, in which state authorizers would focus their resources on cases that pose the most risk to consumers. Authorizers could set up oversight boards independent of the political process and the existing higher education system in the state, require new entrants to provide basic documentation to establish a minimum level of seriousness, and have a well-designed set of consumer protections to weed out poorly structured or fraudulent institutions. In particular, states could require organizations to put up private capital as insurance against failure, which would also help to separate serious providers from diploma mills.

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Quality assurance (QA) regimes have become an increasingly dominant regulatory tool in the management of higher education sectors around the world. By one estimate, nearly half the countries in the world now have quality assurance systems or QA regulatory bodies for higher education. This paper explores the emergence and spread of QA regimes, the coalescence of regulatory logics around qualifications frameworks, and the broad confluence of such approaches in terms of their impact on the historically contested relationship between the state and university. By focusing on the interlocking regulatory logics provided by QA, the article explores how such approaches impose quasi-market, competitive based rationalities premised on neo-liberal managerialism using a policy discourse that is often informed by conviction rather than evidence.

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This publication likens postgraduate education to 'an exclusive golf club' which is becoming increasingly exclusive amid rising tuition fees and real terms cuts to research and funding council support. In joint chapter with the National Union of Students (NUS), CentreForum urges the government to implement an undergraduate style loans scheme for postgraduate taught courses. It is argued that a more restricted loans scheme could be piloted within the government's existing higher education budget before being rolled out in full. In addition, the report urges universities to take steps towards expanding their endowment capacity and accessing financial markets to enable postgraduate students to draw loans. It also calls for data to be collected to assess how far current funding arrangements are suppressing demand for postgraduate study, as well as a review of the rules, regulations and funding structures in postgraduate education.

Excerpts from abstract from publisher's website.

The contents are as follows: Introduction - The state of postgraduate education; Existing types of funding; The funding shortfall; The case for more funding; Voice of the economist / Joanne Lindley and Stephen Machin; Voice of the student / Rachel Wenstone and Adam Wright (including case studies); Voice of the employer / David Cairncross; Voice of academia - Between [postgraduate teaching] PGT and [postgraduate research] PGR: Doctoral programmes at home and abroad / Nigel Vincent; Don't forget PGR funding / Wendy Piatt; The case for postgraduate loans / Tom Frostick, Tom Gault and Adam Wright; What else can be done? - Government talks, flexible learning and private finance / Joel Mullan; Endowments / Conor Ryan; Pricing and competition, supportive rules and regulations / Andy Westwood; Conclusions and recommendations. Show less

This discussion paper has been prepared to stimulate new conversations about the quality assurance of online higher education in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies. By taking stock of recent research and building on recent global and regional initiatives to promote the role of quality assurance in online education, the paper aims to contribute to a shared understanding of the challenges faced by economies in the APEC region and to identify new opportunities. The focus is on the system or policy level of higher education, identifying areas of institutional practice as part of a quality culture and providing models of current practice. Specifically the paper: (1) provides a broad overview of the perceptions and variability of online education in the APEC region; (2) identifies the benefits of regional, domestic and institutional frameworks for assuring the quality of online education; (3) advances an integrated approach to the quality assurance of online learning in higher education; (4) promotes a shared understanding of a 'quality culture' within institutions; and (5) provides models of quality assurance of online education to inform the development of a toolkit that will assist APEC economies adapt and manage potential risks associated with new forms of higher education delivery. The toolkit and its domains was developed in collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders to stimulate conversations and help guide the development of consistent approaches to the quality assurance of online education at the policy, regulatory and institutional level.

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In this paper, [the authors] propose the creation of a new, income-based system of student-loan repayment to replace current US federal loan programs. In an increasingly competitive global labor market, it is more important than ever that student-loan policy be designed to help make a college education accessible to all students. The proposal is to replace the current student-loan system with an income-based repayment system. A single, simple, income-based repayment system, Loans for Educational Opportunity (LEO), will replace the current complicated federal loan system. Employers will withhold a fixed percentage from individuals' paychecks, and payments will be spread out beyond the low-earning early years so that young workers are not hit with large payments when they can least handle them. Instead of paying off loans during a fixed, 10-year period, borrowers will have up to 25 years to repay, although most borrowers will repay in about 10 years, as is the case now.

The proposal also involves eliminating private servicing of loans and regulating private loans more tightly. Currently there are protections in the student-loan system for lenders, but not enough protections for borrowers. To protect students and their families from taking on too much debt and to ensure that individuals are properly informed of their options in repaying their loans, the authors propose a number of changes to how private lenders operate: private student loans should not survive bankruptcy, loans that need a credit check will not be marketed as student loans, and individuals must exhaust all federal student loans before being allowed to take out any private loans.

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This paper draws upon two research projects to evaluate a decade of reform concerning the professionalisation of further education teachers, and discusses future prospects under the new coalition government. It suggests that policy initiatives to regulate further education (FE) teachers have taken place within an industrial or occupational paradigm of the past that keeps FE separate from the more professional frameworks of schools and higher education. Drawing upon research, the paper also shows that after a decade of reform, successive standards and regulatory frameworks have not brought about national coherence. Rather, it has fragmented the system even further and diverted attention away from addressing more fundamental weaknesses such as developing stronger mentoring and workplace support. In conclusion, the analysis looks to the future, arguing that the threatened revocation of the 2007 regulations, combined with the present economic situation facing colleges, will lead to the marketisation of FE initial teacher training. This has profound implications for the quality of provision and the professional status of FE teachers, who seem to be returning to their voluntarist past.

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