Government was ‘right not to just bail out universities’

Hepi head backs government’s Covid-19 support package despite different demands from universities

Policymakers were right “not simply to hand over” a multi-billion-pound Covid-19 bailout package to universities, as it could have damaged public goodwill towards higher education, the head of a leading think-tank has said.

In a speech for the Amazon Web Services Higher Education Transformation Week on 14 December, Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said the government was “right not simply to hand over the £2 billion or so that the higher education sector demanded early in the crisis” and to instead “offer a more nuanced and sophisticated support package”.