Postgraduates, pipelines and scissors

I've just read an excellent report on postgraduate education by the Higher Education Commission.   It makes urgent points about the need  to integrate postgraduate education into our overall HE system, and not treat it as a discrete part, for instance on funding. Postgraduate  numbers are now roughly the same as undergraduate numbers 30 years ago. In terms of  social class the profile of today's  postgraduates strongly resembles the profile of undergraduates then - ie strongly favouring those from  better off backgrounds.    This is why the HEC report calls it 'the next frontier for widening participation' - ie the challenge is to broaden the social intake at this level (not that the challenge of broadening the social…
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