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University of Bedfordshire

108

NATIONAL
RANK

50.7%

FIRSTS
2:1s

82.3%

COMPLETION
RATE

Key Stats

n/a

TEACHING
QUALITY

68th=

STUDENT
EXPERIENCE

102nd=

RESEARCH
QUALITY

88th=

GRADUATE
PROSPECTS

Contact details

ADDRESS

University Square, Luton, LU1 3JU View on map >

Telephone

01234 400 400

admissions@beds.ac.uk

Website

www.beds.ac.uk

Open days

September 24 (Luton/Bedford); October 11 (Milton Keynes/Aylesbury); October 18 (Bedford); October 25 (Luton)

University Profile

Bedfordshire launched an attractive new campus in Milton Keynes in 2013 to add to its main bases in Luton and Bedford. But applications still dropped by 15% last year and the undergraduate intake was 1,000 lower than in the boom year of 2011. University Campus Milton Keynes, which is a partnership with the local authority, opened with 100 students taking engineering, technology, health and business courses. It will expand with the fastest-growing city in the UK, but the bulk of the students will still be on the university’s town-centre site in Luton, where a new £46m library is due to open before the 2015 entrants arrive. The Milton Keynes initiative is typical of a university which has one of the most diverse student bodies of any university. Almost all of Bedfordshire’s entrants are from state schools and 45% come from working-class backgrounds. Around a third of the undergraduates are 21 or over on entry and about the same proportion take part-time courses. The numbers admitted through clearing have dropped from nearly one in three to under one

in ten, and the projected dropout rate has improved considerably. Although it was over 13% in the last survey, that figure was better than the national average (14.9%) based on the university’s courses and students’ entry qualifications. Surprisingly high numbers are recruited from outside the EU, many of them taking postgraduate courses. The withdrawal by the government of permission for the university to recruit non-EU students between June and early August this year therefore had the potential to hit the university hard. The move followed a crackdown on suspect English language qualifications held by international students. However, an investigation by UK Visas and Immigration found no failings in the Bedfordshire’s management and monitoring of international recruits and it was cleared to resume operations. Bedfordshire has spent £180m on its six campuses since the university changed its identity in 2006, when the former Luton University took over De Montfort’s campus in Bedford and adopted the county’s name. Another £120m has been committed for a range of projects over the next few years. A new campus centre opened in Luton in 2010, with teaching and exhibition space as well as the students’ union, information desks and a careers and employment centre. A £40m student halls complex with ensuite facilities, phone and high-speed internet access, a Postgraduate and Continuing Professional Development Centre and a well-equipped media arts centre have followed. The Bedford campus, in a leafy setting 20 minutes’ walk from the town centre, has a new campus centre comprising a 280-seat auditorium and a students’ union, as well as an accommodation block for 500 students. Further redevelopment is planned. The campus is home to the Education and Sport Faculty, with 3,273 students, making it the UK’s largest provider of physical education teacher training, as well as a national centre for other subjects at primary and secondary level. Another 1,000 students take subjects such as performing arts, law and business management. The Putteridge Bury campus, a neo-Elizabethan mansion on the outskirts of Luton, doubles as a management centre and conference venue, as well as an academic teaching space. It is home to the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Postgraduate Medical School, which is run in partnership with Hertfordshire and Cranfield universities. Nursing and midwifery students in the growing Faculty of Health and Social Sciences are based at the Butterfield Park campus, near Luton, or at the Oxford House development, in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. Placements are available at wide range of hospitals, including Stoke Mandeville, Wycombe General Hospital, Luton & Dunstable and Bedford. Bedfordshire’s courses are largely vocational. The portfolio of two-year foundation degrees has been scaled back, but a range of subjects from animal management to web design and software development are provided through partner colleges in a wide range of towns and cities across the east of England. The university pioneered electronic assessment, with more than 10,000 students in disciplines from accountancy to biology tested by computer. Bedfordshire was also awarded a national centre of excellence in personal development planning and employability, aiming to link student learning with life after university. The university celebrated much-improved results in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, registering at least some world-leading work in earth systems and environmental science, social work, social policy and administration, sport, tourism and leisure, English language and literature, and communications, cultural and media studies. Bedfordshire was awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize in 2013 for applied research on child exploitation, which influenced new safeguarding policy and practice. Bedfordshire has seesawed in our league table, partly because it has struggled in the National Student Survey, although its student satisfaction scores have risen sharply this year to rank the university higher than on any other of our league table measures. Some of the lowest entry requirements of any university and a poor student:staff ratio make it hard for the university to perform well in our league table. Both Luton and Bedford have their share of pubs, clubs and restaurants, and London is only half an hour away by train from Luton. Bedford’s impressive sports facilities were used to host athletes for the 2012 Olympics and are expected to have a role in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. The university broke into the top 20 in the People and Planet Green League in 2013, scoring highly for its reduction in carbon emissions, and it is Fairtrade accredited.

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Detailed Statistics

PERFORMANCE