In the last decade the financial burden for undergraduate education has been substantially shifted in England from the state to the individual. This policy change has received plenty of attention in the research literature (e.g. Davies et al. 2009, Callender 2010, Mangan et al., 2010, Harrison and Hatt 2011, Davies et al. 2012). However, the appetite of government to shape practice and performance in higher education has not been reduced by its reluctance to pay for students’ participation. In the words (Cable 2011) of the Secretary of State for Business and Industry:

"[Higher Education strategy] will remain firmly on improving teaching; on new, innovative ways of organising undergraduate courses; on making sure that all applicants can see essential information about contact time, work experience opportunities, subsequent employability data and the like on universities' websites. We're intent on seeing the sector modernise and also achieve greater operational efficiency, recognising that our world class institutions have a broader mission than fitting in with our financial constraints."

This paper traces the emergence of a policy of ‘government as information broker’ in relation to participation in higher education. This part of the paper uses documentary and web sources to provide an account of the actions of government in creating a need for information and in taking actions which are declared as beneficial for informing student choice. The paper also evaluates this emerging policy by gathering evidence of students’ ‘choice’ behaviour. Whilst there have been several large scale surveys (e.g. Connor et al. 2001, UNITE 2007, Purcell et al., 2008, Renfrew et al. 2010) investigating students’ use and interpretation of information available about Higher Education, these have not been previously compared or used to reflect on the emergence of the new policy stance. The account of the government’s role as information broker also uses other sources (such as OfSTED 2010) which offer The judgement emerging from any evaluation of the policy stance of ‘government as broker’ will depend critically on assumptions made about the nature of students’ choice. For this reason the paper also evaluates the policy of ‘government as broker’ from some alternative theoretical perspectives: rational choice; bounded rationality and cultural capital.

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