I’ve had a busy time since I got back from a lovely holiday in Tuscany (www.psmartino.it). On my first day back at work I went to the Apple offices to hear about CampusM, an application designed to give students access to campus services through their smartphones (iPhones and the like!) and a new version/product for student recruitment i.e. applicants.

> By the way, someone asked a question there that no-one was able to answer: how many applicants (not students) have smartphones? Anyone out there in the blogoverse have an answer to that?

I’ve also had a trip to the University of Bath where I talked to staff there about how they communicate with prospective applicants. I rather put one of them on the spot when I asked what the next big thing would be, after blogs, facebook, youtube, apps, what tech is next for young people. But she wasn’t phased, and suggested that I look into foursquare – so I will!

It (foursquare) may not turn out to be useful for communicating with potential applicants, but Bath are certainly doing lots of things to enhance and develop the university-applicant-student relationship, so watch their space!

Both of those meetings were about how other people are ‘thinking creatively’ about communicating with students, so really helped me with keeping my finger on the pulse and reflecting on the design of the online resource. But this week I also attended a breakfast seminar run by IntoUniversity which in its own way is ‘thinking creatively’, in that it offers an “innovative programme that supports young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to attain either a university place or another chosen aspiration”, through out-of-school study, mentoring, aspirational coaching, personal support and, in partnership with universities, FOCUS weeks, days and weekends.

The event was very interesting; Andrew Dilnot (of ‘More or Less’ fame, and also Oxford), Jo Blandon (University of Surrey) and Lee Eliott Major (Sutton Trust) and about 20 participants were discussing whether educational failure has an economic impact, and whether we should in fact be making economic arguments about the benefits of education and social mobility at all. The general feeling around the table (there were quite a few reps from educational charities), was that we all do what we do for moral reasons, but we have to give economic reasons in order to be heard.

Which brings me nicely to Vince Cable’s speech this morning, where the Minister set out his aspirations for the HE sector.  Alarm bells went off in my head when I heard the following: “I’m an economist so I think about the margin, as well as the average. The fact is that we don’t know much about the marginal costs and benefits of HE participation”. Oh dear I thought, a university education reduced to earning a graduate premium. Dr Cable did go on to say that there is more than a cash return to studying at university, but his focus this morning was not on “the transformation of life opportunities”, but on the HE sector needing to think creatively about funding methods.

As you’ll know from previous posts, the Browne Review asked the sector to do precisely that, come up with some proposals for the future funding of  higher education and student finance. It seems that Dr Cable has his own preference: a graduate tax, and this has sparked much debate across Twitter and the blogoverse already. e.g. Vince Cable & the future of higher education and http://twitter.com/#search?q=vince%20cable.

We, the 1994 Group, have welcomed ‘a bold and progressive vision for the sector‘, and, from my personal and project point of view, in particular, the commitment from the Secretary of State to strengthen the information available to  applicants…So now I can get on with ‘thinking creatively’ about how to provide information to prospective students