ABSTRACT
When people in the United Kingdom talk of higher education they primarily have in mind what goes on in a relatively small number of institutions: the universities (ancient and modern), the recently established polytechnics, and the most recent colleges of higher education. It is convenient, as well as customary and only slightly misleading, to refer to the universities as the "private" or "autonomous" sector and the two latter categories together as the "public" one. Higher education is thus only a part (and the smaller part) of tertiary or postsecondary education and is usually sharply distinguished from "further" education, the general term given to organized provision for most of those who continue their education beyond the school-leaving age of sixteen. Even to begin to understand British higher education, some figures must be attached to these labels; more will then be said about their meanings.
