A vice-chancellor has warned that the government¡¯s focus on judging English higher education through graduate earnings will ¡°downgrade¡± excellent universities outside London, while the sector regulator has announced that it will measure value by polling students and graduates.

The Office for Students published its ¡°value for money¡± strategy on 18 October. The legislation which created the new regulator gave it a duty to ¡°promote value for money in the provision of higher education¡±.

With definitions of value for money hotly contested, the OfS says in the strategy that its ¡°primary measure of value for money will be based on the perceptions of students and graduates¡±. ¡°This will allow us to monitor progress without imposing our own definition of value for money on students,¡± the strategy says.

In practice, this will mean ¡°surveying students and graduates about their views on value for money¡±, while gaining ¡°additional insight¡± from ¡°external research¡± including ¡°studies of the Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset on graduate earnings¡±.

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The focus of the government and its review of post-18 education on LEO, which looks at graduate earnings by course and by university, has brought criticism from the sector.

Sir Nigel Carrington, vice-chancellor of the University of the Arts London, told a Higher Education Policy Institute event that LEO data were ¡°deeply flawed¡±, highlighting that?they focused on early career earnings and did not take account of part-time earnings or self-employment.

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He also said that LEO ¡°doesn¡¯t distinguish between different types of students in different parts of the country¡±, noting the disparity in earnings between different regions of the country.

Universities should engage with the OfS, the Department for Education and the Treasury so as to define value in a ¡°much more grown-up way¡±, Sir Nigel argued.

The societal benefits of universities in increasing knowledge exchange, social cohesion, well-being and ¡°money saved for the NHS¡± through higher levels of health among graduates were all elements of the value of higher education, Sir Nigel said.

¡°Many of the greatest universities in this country are not in London, they are not rich and they do not have high graduate earnings. What they have is a fundamental role underpinning the cities in which they are based,¡± he added.

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¡°Saying that we should downgrade those universities because the earnings of their graduates are lower than the earnings graduates in London¡­is, let¡¯s face it, completely counterproductive to the health of the country.¡±

john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com