Whilst all of this proved very time consuming, the practitioners that I talked who had been involved in the programme remembered how ‘the process raised [their] awareness of the scale and range of inputs associated with delivering summer schools’ (Raven, 2015a, n.p.). The data generated also ‘enabled HEFCE to conduct a cost-based analysis of the scheme, including a consideration of the ‘average total cost of each summer school,’ as well as ‘the costs per participant and per participant day’ (HEFCE, 2009: 7; Raven, 2015a, n.p.). Whilst these insights were of value, the opinion piece drew presented the argument that other indirect, or opportunity costs should also have been considered (Phillips, 2009, Kaplan, 2014). These, it was suggested, could include ‘the costs incurred by school and college staff in supporting’ this outreach intervention and, potentially, ‘the costs sustained by participants, in terms of their time away from the classroom, as well as those incurred by their parents’ (Raven, 2015a). Cost-based analysis can, it was concluded, get complicated. The search for VfM is no different. Indeed, some argue that VfM is an even broader concept and an even more challenging one to prove. Jackson (2012, 2) has observed that ‘value for money does not need to be about monetising everything’. Corroborating this assessment, an OfS (2022b, n.p.) study of 2019 showed that students interpret the ‘value’ of a higher education in range of ways. For some, it is about employability, whilst others place a premium on learning, or the wider university experience. Some of the research on level 3 FE students I have been involved with (in the good company of Robin Webber-Jones, of this prestigious e-bulletin, and John Baldwin, another of this edition’s contributors), identify the same variations. Whilst an interesting concept, we perhaps need to be cautious about what VfM means and what demonstrating it might entail. However, I would be very interested to hear the views of readers on this subject.