UK university rankings
UNIVERSITY OF CUMBRIA
St Andrews ousts Oxbridge from the Good University Guide top spot for first time
The league table
Imperial College London performed the best in the analysis of year-on-year change in NSS outcomes, one of just two universities to see its student satisfaction scores rise at the height of the pandemic. It has been named The Times and The Sunday Times University of the Year and also the University of the Year for Student Experience in recognition of outstanding initiatives in online teaching and the role played by the university’s epidemiologists in guiding the nation and government through the unfolding pandemic. Imperial College rises one place to fourth in the GUG rankings, but closes significantly on Cambridge directly above it.
Professor Alice Gast, the president of Imperial College London, said: “Imperial’s success is thanks to its brilliant people. When Covid struck, students and staff did not just think about mitigation, they raised their ambitions.
“Imperial’s experience is not just a case study in crisis, it offers a glimpse of what higher education can be.”
Oxford and Cambridge have been beaten to the top spot of a UK university ranking for the first time as St Andrews is rated the best university in Britain. The Good University Guide, published online today, places the Scottish institution at the top of its league table, largely thanks to its consistently outstanding levels of student satisfaction.
No British rankings have ever placed any university other than Oxbridge at number one. Cambridge had triumphed for the previous eight editions of the GUG, but drops to third place this year in the tightest finish yet at the top of the table.
St Andrews has been homing in on the top of the rankings for several years. But its student satisfaction levels have peaked during the pandemic with the university now holding a huge lead over rival universities in two GUG measures derived from the annual National Student Survey (NSS), covering teaching quality and student experience.
This year’s NSS — conducted between January and April this year at the height of the pandemic — revealed sharp falls in student satisfaction both with teaching quality and their wider student experience at most institutions, which have impacted the annual GUG rankings. Although St Andrews itself experienced a small fall in satisfaction, much larger falls elsewhere have left it in a position of unprecedented strength.
Barely a week since Dame Mary Beard, the Cambridge classics professor, told The Times Education Commission that people should “stop being so damned fixated on Oxford and Cambridge and think about a range of universities in this country”, it seems she has got her wish with the changing of the guard in the GUG league table.
St Andrews, founded in 1413, hits top spot after rises in seven of the eight ranking measures in the GUG league table for which there was new data for the 2022 edition, ranking first in three of them. In addition to its twin triumphs for student satisfaction, the university now admits the best-qualified students, each entering with an average of 207 Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) tariff points, one more than Cambridge.
It also achieves top-ten ratings for degree completion rates, the proportion of high-class degrees awarded, staffing levels and the average spend on services and facilities per student.
Professor Sally Mapstone, the principal of St Andrews since 2016, said: “I am thrilled for our students, staff and alumni. They are the people who made this happen. As one community, we strive constantly for excellence, and have a strategy that hasn’t been afraid to believe St Andrews could challenge at the very top by combining the best teaching, world-leading research and an unswerving commitment to student satisfaction and achievement.”
Mapstone, an Oxford graduate, added: “Of course we’ll enjoy this remarkable result, and I expect there may be a little good-natured cross-border teasing among colleagues. We have been in very good company close to the top of this important league table for several years, but until now, always on someone’s shoulder.
“I hope the fact that the staff and students of a small Scottish institution have been able to break through the hitherto impenetrable Oxbridge ceiling will inspire others, and show that the status quo is only that if you allow it to be.”
The new edition of the GUG identifies the universities that have been hit hardest by the student backlash against the past 18 months on — or more often, off — campus. Bournemouth University lost the most points in an analysis of the 2021 NSS outcomes compared with those from 2020.
Students at Cambridge and Oxford have boycotted the NSS since 2016, keeping their opinions of how the two universities have handled lockdown learning to themselves. GUG analysts have taken their last known ratings from 2016 and applied a sector-average revision to those figures based on the overall decline in student satisfaction in the years since.
University of the Year awards
The annual GUG University of the Year awards recognised several other high-achieving universities in the most turbulent year for higher education since the rankings were first published in 1993. Imperial College London becomes the 20th different winner of University of the Year since the awards were first made in 1999. St Andrews, Oxford and Loughborough have each won the award twice.
Warwick won this year’s University of the Year for Teaching Quality award and was runner-up for University of the Year. Ranked eighth overall — and an ever-present in the GUG elite top ten — Warwick is now the highest-placed Russell Group university for student satisfaction with teaching quality.
University of the Year
Runner-up
Shortlisted
Edge Hill University
Ulster University
University of York
Modern University of the Year
Scottish University of the Year
Welsh University of the Year
Sports University of the Year
University of the Year for Social Inclusion
University of the Year for Teaching Quality
University of the Year for Student Experience
University of the Year for Graduate Employment
University of the Year for Student Retention