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Official figures from the Home Office show an increase in mobility of the highly-skilled from the United Kingdom ( UK) to other European countries. This paper analyses the social composition of intra- European mobile graduates from the UK in the context of recent political developments ( Bologna- Process, European Higher Education Area). Using quantitative and qualitative data from a longitudinal study of students and its follow-up study, the paper compares the social composition and current activity of intra- European mobile graduates with those remaining in the UK. Personal and higher education-related variables together with the current type of employment were significant for the distinction between intra- European mobile graduates and ' UK stayers'. UK-educated mobile graduates were identified as ' Eurostars', who come from high social classes or studied at high tariff higher education institutions. Mobility was identified as one way for UK-educated graduates to avoid employment in non-graduate jobs and add further value to their undergraduate degrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a tribute to the life work of Maurice Kogan. Very little of higher education's landscape in the United Kingdom has remained unchanged over the past four decades and this article sets out to analyze the way the perception of the role of universities in society has changed in the intervening period. This it does through three perspectives: continuity and change, continuity in change and continuity in the midst of change. Each yields very different visions of the university. Against this ‘inside’ view, the second part of the article examines current British higher education policy from an ‘outsider’ standpoint and very particularly the current strategies towards the European Higher Education and Research Areas. It concludes by arguing that Britain's higher education policy vis a vis Europe re-states a dilemma which these Islands have had to tackle for the best part of the past 250 Years. This dilemma is whether to lay priority on higher education as a global instrument or to endorse a more limited, less ambitious agenda of ‘European’ integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]