This volume brings together a selection of articles published over the fifty year life of the Universities/Higher Education Quarterly which provides a critical overview of the development of university and non-university higher education over the post-War period and of the policy debates which occurred at various points.

Michael Shattock has been General Editor of the Higher Education Quarterly since 1986 and is the author of The UGC and the Management of British Universities published by the Open University Press in 1994. He has written widely about higher education and has also played an active role in its development both as Registrar of the University of Warwick and in relation to various commissioned inquiries and membership of national bodies.