Which is the best university? Which offers the best employability? What is the top university according to students? In fact, what measures the value of a university? These are questions that students, alumni and faculty are always trying to answer to appeal to new students. Not a week goes by without another university receiving a media award for being the “Best University For…”. The next one, is the “Happiness League”.
Image: By Egor Gribanov from St. Petersburg, Russia - 02 x10K_ IMG_3743, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10587987
Which Students Are Happiest?
According to a 2016 survey by the NSS (National Students Survey), the joint top two universities for happiness rating were The University of Buckingham and The University of Law. Both are privately run universities, the only two in the country at present. It is the first time that any private university has come top of this particular ranking and the first high finish for Buckingham since it began taking part in the NSS surveys in 2005.
Both registered an overall happiness rating of 97%. Of particular celebration for Buckingham was its rating of Student Support Services which ranked highest of all institutions at 96%. Students singled out the ability for their lecturers to “explain things properly” at 96% satisfaction and smooth running of the course at 93%.
For its part, ULaw was ranked highest for faculty enthusiasm for the subject. It received 97% for programme delivery and came third for Academic Support and Organisation sectors.
The Remaining Top 10
St Mary's University College came third with a 95% approval rating. Courtauld Institute of Art, Keele University, and University of St. Andrews came joint 4th with a 94% rating. In joint 7th place were Bishop Grosseteste University, Harper Adams University, Liverpool Hope University and Aberystwyth University with 92%.
London School of Economics, traditionally a high achiever in terms of student satisfaction, saw a measured drop this year. It’s approval rating dropped by 6%. It had the lowest approval rating of all major university institutions. Commenting, the university said that it already had in place an £11m investing package to claw its way back into the top 10.
How Was the Happiness Measured?
The survey was conducted by the National Student Survey on behalf of Higher Education Funding Council for England and surveyed some 500,000 final year undergraduate students. They hired prestigious survey organisation IPSOS MORI to conduct the survey. There were 23 questions in the survey.
This is conducted every year and the information is used to guide students looking to apply to universities in the coming academic year and ahead of the opening of the next applications of UCAS for the following academic year.
Accepting the award, Buckingham University said that their focus on the student as an individual had had a major impact on its success for this year. New methods of teaching including practical methods, has now put the university firmly on students’ radars.