Liz Morrish discusses some new ways the Conservative government will seek to assess and rank universities. ‘Learning gain’ is about to be ‘a thing’.

It is just over two weeks after the General Election, and our thoughts turn to the prospect of more cuts in public spending, a new leader for the Labour Party, some uncertainty over Brexit and the referendum on EU membership, and, post UKIP, a somewhat muted dialogue over immigration. But what lies in the future for higher education? Have you been paying selective attention over the months leading up to the election? A tuition fee cut may have lodged in your memory, but that was Labour Party policy, and we can forget that now. What does a Conservative government have planned for universities? We know that abolition of the cap on student numbers was already in the offing, as was a national postgraduate loan system for…